Newswise — The Center for Digital Transformation (CDT) at UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business will host its inaugural signature Conference “Road to Reinvention: Leadership in the Digital Age,” on March 19 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center, 100 Academy in Irvine, California.

“This conference will help senior level executives reflect on their journey in an evolving digital world and prepare themselves for massive disruption,” said Vijay Gurbaxani, founding director of the CDT and professor of Information Systems at the Merage School. “As businesses face new and unexpected competition, they must continuously reinvent themselves. The shift to a digital economy calls not just for transformational leadership, but also a deep understanding of the new forces at play. Those with better strategic foresight of the digital world will be better positioned to leverage this information and adapt to the coming environment.”

With an agenda designed for CEOs, board members, senior marketing, financial and technology executives, the conference will highlight the findings of research conducted by the Center for Digital Transformation, including results from its Digital Transformation Survey. The survey, which has collected insights from senior business and technology executives in five countries, finds that while some leaders recognize the importance of adopting new strategies and structures to compete in the digital economy, many do not. Digital leaders are different from businesses that lag in several important ways. The sessions will draw on the research, focusing on helping executives design, implement and fund a compelling digital vision.

Professor Vijay Gurbaxani and Martin Giles, the senior US Technology correspondent with The Economist, will interview executives and moderate panel discussions. Participants will benefit from acquiring new knowledge and actionable insights from peers who are building and reinventing organizations to succeed in the digital economy.Business reinvention case studies will include perspectives from featured guests: Michael Bender, chief operating officer of e-Commerce at Walmart; Pete Flint, chief executive officer at Trulia; Shafiq Khan, senior vice president of e-Commerce at Marriott; and Sean Middleton, chief operating officer of Cognizant's Emerging Business Accelerator.

Local executives featured at this conference include: Jon Krause, SVP of Operations at Oakley and CIO of Luxottica North America; John Rogers, SVP of Technology Solutions at CoreLogic’s Innovation Labs; Philip Potloff, chief operating officer/chief information officer at Edmunds.com; Oren Goldschmidt, chief technology officer at Frost Data Capital; Joseph Essas, chief technology officer at OpenTable, and Jeff Margolis, chairman & CEO of Welltok. In addition, Arun Sundararajan, professor at the New York University Stern School of Business, will provide a briefing on the sharing economy and what this movement means to the future of business and human-to-human interaction. The day will close with a look to the future with Stephen Gold of IBM Watson discussing the future of cognitive computing. For additional details, please visit merage.uci.edu/go/cdt.

About the Center for Digital TransformationThe Center for Digital Transformation is one of seven Centers of Excellence at UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business. The Center works to advance the competitiveness and productivity of businesses in the digital economy. Guided by a distinguished and talented external advisory board, we provide executives with a better understanding of the dynamics of the digital revolution and what these forces mean for their industries and organizations. For more information about the CDT, visit: merage.uci.edu/ResearchAndCenters/CDT/.

About The Paul Merage School of Business at UC IrvineThe Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine offers four dynamic MBA programs – plus PhD, specialty masters and undergraduate business degrees – that graduate business leaders with the exceptional ability to help grow their organizations through strategic innovation, analytical decision-making, information technology and collaborative execution. While the Merage School is relatively young, it has quickly grown to consistently rank among the top AACSB-accredited programs through exceptional student recruitment, world-class faculty, a strong alumni network and close relationships with both individual business executives and global corporations. Additional information is available at merage.uci.edu.

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