Digital Economy and Platform Markets

Executive Chairman

Dr. David J. Teece is a renowned organizational economist and authority on technology transfer, innovation management, and policy. He is a leading scholar, consultant, CEO mentor, and testifying expert on technological change in both industrial and digital economy contexts. He has pioneered both the dynamic capabilities and dynamic competition perspectives. He is one of the world’s most cited economists/management scholars and has strong operating experience and is also active in venture capital.

Managing Director

Dr. Rosa Abrantes-Metz is a leading economist and testifying expert on multisided platforms and has coauthored academic papers and reports on the topic. She has a particular expertise involving the intersection between alleged market manipulations and competition issues, as well as the economics of multisided platforms. She testified in US Airways v. Sabre, assisting in the first win for plaintiff on monopolization of a multisided platform. This matter was honored by the American Antitrust Institute for “Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Economics” and selected by GCR among its “Matters of the Year.” She also has testified regarding healthcare platforms as well as payments systems in Europe.

Senior Advisor

Professor Hemant K. Bhargava is Distinguished Professor of Management, Jerome and Elsie Suran Chair in Technology Management, and director of the Center for Analytics and Technology in Society at the University of California at Davis. He is an award-winning author of articles on the digital economy, platform businesses, and technology-driven industries. His research has concentrated on how the distinctive characteristics of digital economy products influence competitive strategies for digital businesses. He has helped large tech companies solve real-world business problems, including auction design in advertising-driven platforms, pricing of software services, and technology deployment, as well as addressing competition policy issues. In 2021, CDO Magazine named him one of the Top Academic Data Leaders for innovative ideas leveraging data and analytics that provide real-world results.

Managing Director

John Blair focuses his research and consulting practice on the intersection of technology and economics, and particularly on the economic and strategic implications of disruptive technologies. His background is in software and hardware engineering and management. He led the software design team for the first 16-bit laptop computer and founded one of Australia’s most successful hardware companies. He has consulted extensively for IBM, Apple, Adobe, and Intel, among others, with a focus on the valuation and strategic management of intellectual property around leading-edge digital technologies.

Managing Director

Thomas Brown is global leader of BRG’s Cyber Security and Investigations practice. He specializes in helping clients manage cyber risk, investigate cyber incidents and crypto-related matters, remediate vulnerabilities, and comply with cybersecurity, data privacy, and cryptocurrency standards and regulations. He is a veteran federal prosecutor and trial lawyer with deep experience in cyber and crypto matters. He supervised and led complex cross-border cyber and crypto investigations and prosecutions, including cases against the owner of Silk Road, which resulted in the seizure of 173,000 bitcoin; and a US exchanger for WebMoney, the Russian-based digital currency.

Senior Advisor

Joseph Doyle is the Erwin H. Schell Professor of Management and Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management and faculty director of the MIT Sloan Initiative for Health Systems Innovation. He is an applied microeconomist and econometrician whose academic work has focused on healthcare and child welfare. Much of his research estimates causal effects using transparent and credible empirical strategies. He has applied these techniques as a testifying or consulting expert to litigation, investigations, and regulation. Many of his projects have involved online markets, such as broadband, online gaming, and software platforms, and often the analysis of massive datasets. His empirical work often leads to visually compelling and accessible demonstrations of causal effects which are helpful to triers of fact.

Associate Director

Dr. Steven Gawthorpe has over ten years of experience in applying data science techniques. He is a subject-matter expert on machine learning, natural language processing, and statistical analysis. At BRG, he spearheads the development of artificial intelligence solutions for applications such as information retrieval, named-entity recognition, sentiment analysis, and text generation. He previously served as senior data scientist for the Drugs Monitoring Platform, an MLOps solution he developed at the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, which is used to assess the economics of crime in drug trafficking.

Managing Director

Eric Matrejek specializes in data analytics, cybersecurity, and investigations and brings significant experience in digital transformation, compliance, and governance systems. His experience includes investigating cybercrime, national security matters, and supply chain security issues. He also advises clients on how to optimize security, compliance, and resiliency in distributed multi-cloud environments. He writes and speaks frequently on cybersecurity and government enforcement issues. Previously, he was Global Digital Forensics & eDiscovery leader at a Big Four firm, led two technology startups, and led public-sector development teams.

Managing Director

Dr. Albert Metz is an authority on the economics of cryptocurrency markets and multisided platforms. He has testified on price reactions and market efficiency in cryptocurrency markets and has authored studies on the economics of multisided platforms. An econometrician, he has extensive experience conducting sophisticated quantitative studies, including for litigation. As the former director of Moody’s Investors Service Global Model and Methodology Group, he is a leading authority on risk modeling and has developed general models of the dynamics of networks and multisided platforms.

Managing Director

Bradley Mirkin provides expert guidance on artificial intelligence, machine learning, language models/national language recognition (NLR), data engineering, integrity, quality, and rationalization, as well as algorithmic performance. As a regulator-approved corporate monitor, he reports on compliance programs, risk management, and process improvement, including NLR software monitoring and improvement. Previously, he led regulatory compliance and risk management solutions for a cloud-native regtech company, advising banks, payments providers, and other corporates. He led cross-functional teams in applying machine learning to feature engineering and alert generation, risk-based filtering, software testing, data engineering, model validation, and testing.

Managing Director

Walter Mix advises domestic banks, international banks, technology firms, fintechs, and financial services companies on governance, risk management, Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering, sanctions, and cybersecurity, as well as digital currency and payments strategy. He also advises clients on reengineering and implementing technology to improve profitability, including artificial intelligence. As a former commissioner of the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (previously the California Department of Financial Institutions), he has significant experience with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, regulatory compliance, and mergers and acquisitions.

Senior Advisor

Dr. Michael D. Noel, Professor of Economics at Texas Tech University, is an expert in industrial organization, antitrust economics, and applied econometrics. He was one of the pioneering contributors to the economics of multisided platforms whose on work market definition for two-sided platforms was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its seminal American Express decision. He has served as an expert economist on various platform matters including online advertising and payments. Dr. Noel is an empirical economist who is skilled in applying cutting-edge statistical and econometric techniques to large and complex datasets. He’s an expert in a wide range of predictive analytics applications, including demand forecasting and prediction, price and product optimization, consumer retention and efficiency analysis, and pattern search.

Senior Advisor

Professor Richard Schmalensee is one of the world’s leading scholars and testifying experts on the digital economy and multisided platforms. He has served as an expert economist in high-profile antitrust and intellectual property cases. He has written extensively on the application of antitrust to the digital economy and other high-tech industries. He is also the author of award-winning books and articles on multisided platforms, several of which the US Supreme Court cited in its seminal American Express decision. He was the dean of the MIT School of Management and has been a long-time member of MIT’s Department of Economics.

Managing Director

Professor Ron Schnell has been a technology leader for over forty years. His involvement in digital assets includes work investigating fraud and ensuring stability. In addition to data analysis, he specializes in the evaluation of source code for smart contracts and specialized tokens for financial and technical instruments. He began his career as an operating system kernel programmer and went on to create three technology startups. He also ran day-to-day operations of The Technical Committee, a private corporation that was ordered to be formed by the US courts to monitor Microsoft Corporation and its compliance with the antitrust final judgments of 2002.

Managing Director

Amy Worley is a data privacy, records management, data governance, and data ethics expert. She practiced law for sixteen years, helping businesses develop comprehensive privacy, data governance, and records management programs. She served as the global chief privacy and records officer for a leading global pharmaceutical and medical device company. She also acts as a fractional data protection officer, providing gap and risk assessments, developing remediation plans, liaising with global regulatory bodies, and assisting clients in responding to security incidents. Her certifications include IAPP CIPP-US, CIPP-E, CIPM, and FIP, and she is a certified HIPAA Privacy and Security Expert.