Andreas Weigend (Semblanza)

Andreas Weigend expertise is the future of big data, social-mobile technologies, and consumer behavior. He studies people and the data they create. In today’s increasingly digitized world, consumers share data in unprecedented ways. This Social Data Revolution represents a deep shift in how people make purchasing and lifestyle choices.

He advises companies that want to embrace this new reality of social data. Together, they design interactive platforms and real-time systems that empower them and their customers to make better decisions. As Amazon’s chief scientist, he helped create the firm’s data strategy and customer-centric culture.

He teaches at Stanford University and UC Berkeley, direct the Social Data Lab, and speaks at corporate events and top conferences around the globe. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University after studying in Germany and Cambridge, UK. He lives in San Francisco and Shanghai.

For the last 20 years, he has worked with global clients including Alibaba, Best Buy, Goldman Sachs, Lufthansa, SAP, SingTel, Thomson Reuters, and the World Economic Forum, as well as with many successful and exciting startups. In workshops and corporate seminars, he helps clients define customer-centric metrics of engagement and design incentives that inspire users to create and share. He takes pride in the co-creation of innovative products and business models that are anchored in a solid data strategy.

In the last year, he gave the keynote at the Federal Trade Commission’s symposium on Comprehensive Data Collection and at MasterCard’s International Advisory Board meeting on The Untapped Power of Data: Refining the New Oil. he spoked at GE’s Data Forecast event on What’s Next in Data Science and the Tata Innovation Forum on The Art of Big Data. He also shared the stage with Phil Kotler at the World Marketing Forum 2013 and with Susan Athey and Hal Varian at the NBER Summer Institute.

He likes to challenge the audience to see the amazing possibilities the social data revolution has for people, business, and society. He shares his insights at corporate events for companies including Google, HP, IBM, Capital One, Otto, Sony and Volkswagen, as well as at conferences organized by The Economist, Condé Nast, and others.

He teaches undergraduate, graduate, MBA, and executive courses at top schools in the US and China. He leverages his broad industry experience on the untapped power of data. He encourages his students to explore real-world scenarios and solve actual business problems.