Ari Lightman

Ari is a Professor, Digital Media and Marketing at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University. He teaches classes focused on assessing and measuring the impact of emerging technologies including Digital Transformation, Data Focused Marketing and Measuring Social. This later class is designed as an experiential learning, project-based class where students work closely with company sponsors to develop recommendations and an analysis framework around a social initiative. Companies who have taken part in the class include eBay, The New York Times, Warner Bros., Ford, Netflix, Google, EA, Marriott, HP, and Under Armour.

Ari is also involved with several executive education and entrepreneurial initiatives within CMU. He currently serves as the Co -Director of the Chief Information Security Officer Program (CISO) at Carnegie Mellon University. CISO is an executive education center focused on providing needed skills for the next generation of security professionals. Ari is responsible for strategic execution and growth of the center into different content areas, organizations and international locations. In addition, Ari works with the Center for Machine Learning and Health (CMLH) within the School of Computer Science at CMU. CMLH provides early stage funding and entrepreneurial advice to emerging CMU technology focused on applying machine learning and advanced analytics to healthcare data sets. Lastly, Ari serves as the faculty lead for an executive education program (AccelerateIT) with Roche.

Earlier in his career, Ari was a member of several successful entrepreneurial high tech ventures where he was integral in raising venture financing, securing key partnerships and sales, and spearheading several initiatives from product management to business development. He began assessing the opportunity for data analytics as a management consultant working with wireless carriers. He has developed web communities and digital media strategies for companies and organizations within healthcare, chemical industry, telecom industry, consumer packaged goods market, and the financial services space. In addition, he has worked with leading research universities to put together strategies and processes for building expert communities to accelerate technology commercialization.