John Andrews
Alex Lee Professor of Business / Co-Founder
College of Business and Economics at Lenoir-Rhyne University / Katadhin Consulting
John Andrews holds the Alex Lee Professorship at Lenoir-Rhyne University, where he teaches Applied AI for Business and builds experiential learning programs that put students inside real client problems. He is co-founder of Katadhin Consulting, CMO and investor at Michael Waltrip Brands, and the former founder and CEO of Collective Bias, acquired by Inmar in 2016. He is the author of Retail Relevancy and The Agile Code. His work sits at the intersection of AI, media, commerce, and education, and he writes and speaks from the practitioner's seat.
Session from the Speaker
Applied AI in the Wild: Humans, Agents, and What's Actually Working
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM, June 5
Main Stage
Category
Education / Technology
Abstract
Most AI conversations stay theoretical. This one won't. Drawing from a Lenoir-Rhyne classroom, consulting engagements, and live operating roles, John Andrews and Soum Padhee share what they're seeing when AI meets real businesses, real students, and real data. The session pairs a practitioner-educator's view of how applied AI is reshaping business education and regional industry with a quantitative researcher's view of how humans and AI agents actually collaborate inside teams, supply chains, and decision systems. Expect specific examples from classroom, consulting, and operating contexts, candid trade-offs, and a working framework for evaluating AI initiatives in your own organization.
Speakers
Soumyakant "Soum" Padhee, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Quantitative Management
College of Business and Economics at Lenoir-Rhyne University