CITI Celebration and Gala

Andrea Prat is the Richard Paul Richman Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, Columbia University. After receiving his PhD in Economics from Stanford University in 1997, he taught at Tilburg University and the London School of Economics. He joined Columbia in 2012.

Professor Prat’s research spans organizational economics and political economy. In organizational economics, his current work uses theoretical modeling, field experiments, and data analysis to study issues including organizational design, corporate leadership, employee motivation, and optimal disclosure. In political economy, his research seeks to define and measure how economic interests -- such as the media industry, large firms, and wealthy individuals -- influence the democratic process.

He is the author of numerous articles in leading journals including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Finance, and the Review of Economic Studies. He served as Chairman and Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Studies. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization and he chairs the organizing committee of the European Summer Symposium in Economic Theory (ESSET). Professor Prat is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Ben Compaine is a Senior Fellow at CITI and the Director of the CITI Fellows Program.

He was executive director of the Program on Information Resources Policy at Harvard University before founding Nova Systems Inc., a software firm in 1986. He sold that in 1994 and accepted an appointment as the Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) Professor of Telecommunications at Temple University. Subsequently he was a visiting professor at Penn State and Fordham University, as well as a turn as Research Consultant for the Program on Internet and Telecoms Convergence at MIT. He currently teaches at Northeastern University.

Ben is the author or editor of 10 books, including Who Owns the Media? His articles have appeared in trade, popular, and scholarly journals, including Telecommunications Policy, Science Digest, Foreign Policy, Reason, Daedalus, The Wall Street Journal and the Journal of Communication. His research and teaching interests include entrepreneurship, Internet and telecommunications policy, mass media economics, and the social and cultural implications of changing information technologies. A graduate of Dickinson College (as a political science major), Ben earned an MBA from Harvard University and Ph.D. from Temple University. His consulting and speaking engagements have taken him to Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia as well as throughout the United States and Canada.

William J. Drake joined CITI as Director of International Studies in January 2022. In addition, he teaches adjunct at Columbia Business School and the Center for Executive Education in Technology Policy, Carnegie Mellon University; and is an International Fellow in the Media Change & Innovation Division of the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich, where he also served as a Lecturer from 2010 − 2020. Other previous work experience has included: Senior Associate at the Centre for International Governance at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies; President of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; Senior Associate and Director of the Project on the Information Revolution and World Politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; founding Associate Director of the Communication, Culture and Technology Program, Georgetown University; Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego; and adjunct professor at the School of Advanced International Studies and the Georgetown School of Business.

Drake’s activities in the academic and practitioner environments have included: advisor to the World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Digital Economy and Society; core faculty member of the European and South schools on Internet governance; Affiliated Researcher at the Institute for Tele-Information, Columbia University; co-editor of the MIT Press book series, The Information Revolution and Global Politics; three terms as Chair of the NonCommercial Users Constituency, seven terms on the Board of Directors of the European At Large Organization, two terms on the Nominating Committee, and two terms on the Council of the Generic Names Supporting Organization, all in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of the UN’s Internet Governance Forum; expert advisor to the high-level Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms; member of the UN’s Working Group on Internet Governance; member of the inaugural Coordination Committee of the NETmundial Initiative; member of the Coordination Committee of the 1Net initiative; member of the Group of High-Level Advisors of UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development; and Vice Chair and founding Steering Committee member of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network.

Drake received his PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.

His publications are available at http://www.williamdrake.org

From October 2022, he is the organizer and moderator of the webinar series, CITI Seminars on Global Digital Governance https://business.columbia.edu/citi/events/citi-seminars-global-digital-governance

William H. Dutton is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Southern California (since 2002). He is living in Oxford and affiliated with the Oxford Internet Institute as a Senior Fellow, and the Global Cyber Security Capacity Center (GCSCC) of the Department of Computer Science as an Oxford Martin Fellow. In addition, Bill is a Research Fellow at the Quello Center of Michigan State University, and a Visiting Professor in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds.

Prior to returning to Oxford, Bill was the Quello Professor of Media and Information Policy, Department of Media and Information in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University (MSU), where he was Director of the Quello Center from 2014-18.

Before starting his Quello Center role, Bill was founding director of the Oxford Internet Institute (2002-2011) at the University of Oxford, for which he received a lifetime achievement award from the department. At Oxford, Bill was the first Professor of Internet Studies and a Professorial Fellow of Balliol College from 2002-2014, when he became Director of the Quello Center.

From 1980, until moving to Oxford in 2002, Bill was a Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, where he continues an affiliation as Emeritus Professor. While at the Annenberg School, Bill was a Fulbright Scholar based in the UK at Brunel University, and later took a leave of absence to be National Director of the UK’s Programme on Information and Communication Technologies (PICT).

His most recent books include The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies (OUP 2013), four edited volumes on Politics and the Internet (Routledge 2014), and a reader entitled Society and the Internet, with Mark Graham (OUP 2014), with a new and revised second edition (OUP 2019). His most recent edited book is entitled A Research Agenda for Digital Politics (Elgar, 2020). His latest book is The Fifth Estate: The Power Shift of the Digital Age (OUP, 2023).

His next book will be an advanced introduction to political communication.

As founding director of the OII during its first decade (2002-2011), he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the department. He is also the first recipient of the International Communication Association’s Fred Williams’ award for contributions to the study of communication and technology. Since then, he was awarded the William F. Ogburn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Communication and Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association in 2014, and in 2015, was named an ICA Fellow by the Board of Directors of the International Communication Association. In 2017, before returning to Oxford, Bill was awarded a medallion for his contributions to Michigan State University.

Bob Atkinson joined CITI in 2000 for the purpose of expanding CITI into a Sloan center for telecommunications research. At CITI, he has written on a number of regulatory issues (for example, Network Neutrality: History Will Repeat Itself, Telecom Regulation for the 21st Century: Avoiding Gridlock, Adapting to Change and Net Neutrality: An Overview) and speaks regularly at conferences on regulatory policy, telecom business trends and the interaction between policy and business.

For 18 months prior to joining CITI, Atkinson was the Deputy Chief of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau. (FCC announcement) With the Chief of the Common Carrier Bureau and two other Deputy Chiefs, he was responsible for developing, implementing and enforcing FCC policies and regulations governing interstate telecommunication services. Mr. Atkinson negotiated the conditions associated with the FCC's approval of the SBC-Ameritech merger and was responsible for the substance of many major FCC decisions, including: UNE Remand; Line Sharing; Bell Atlantic-GTE and Qwest-US West mergers; Broadband Deployment (Sec.706) Report; and, Local Competition & Broadband Deployment data gathering.

From 2001-2006, Atkinson served as the Chairman of the North American Numbering Council (NANC), which advises the FCC on matters affecting the availability and utilization of telephone number resources in the U.S. (NANC goals interview, part 1; part 2)

In March 2009, Atkinson moderated a series of public meetings in Washington, DC on behalf of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) concerning the $7.2 billion "broadband stimulus program". More recently, he supervised the preparation of a report for the FCC’s Broadband Task Force on “Broadband in America” which was presented at the FCC on December 10.

Beginning in 1985, Atkinson was responsible for the regulatory, public policy and external affairs activities of Teleport Communications Group (TCG), the nation's first Competitive Access Provider (CAP) and Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC). In 1994 he became Senior Vice President for Legal, Regulatory & External Affairs when his role was expanded to include responsibility for TCG's Legal Department. When AT&T acquired TCG in July 1998 and TCG became AT&T Local Services, Mr. Atkinson was Vice President and Chief Regulatory Officer of AT&T Local Services until he joined the FCC.

Throughout his career, Atkinson played a leading role in most of the key regulatory and public policy decisions that introduced competition to the local telephone markets and shaped the Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) industry. For example, the TCG White Papers and Citi Papers helped shape key state and federal local competition policies. Since joining CITI, he participated regularly in public policy hearings, conferences and seminars and has been quoted regularly in the press on telecommunications policy issues (for example, PBS and The Chicago Tribune).

In the regulatory and public policy area, Atkinson served in Washington, DC as a Government Relations Representative for ITT's Communication Operations Group and as Counsel for Government and International Matters at Satellite Business Systems (SBS). He was a founder of the Ad Hoc Committee for Competitive Telecommunications (ACCT, a forerunner of CompTel), which was formed by competitive long distance companies in the mid-70's to promote pro-competition legislation and regulations. After joining TCG, Atkinson co-founded and was the first President of the Association for Local Telecommunication Services (ALTS), the competitive local telecommunications industry's trade association.

Atkinson graduated from University of Virginia in 1972 with a Bachelor of Art degree in Government and Foreign Affairs. He later received a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center (evening program) in 1979. While at Georgetown, Atkinson was a member of the Georgetown Law Journal. He is presently admitted to the bar in New Jersey.

Charlie Firestone is President of the Rose Bowl Institute, which champions sportsmanship, leadership, and citizenship, and leverages the power of sports to unite people everywhere. Previously, he was a Vice President and Executive Vice President of The Aspen Institute, and for 30 years was the Executive Director of its Communications and Society Program. While at Aspen, Firestone also led the first Socrates Seminar and helped start the Sports and Society Program.

Before coming to the Aspen Institute in 1990, Firestone was Director of the Communications Law Program and Adjunct Professor of Law at UCLA Law School. He was also the first President of the Los Angeles Board of Telecommunications Commissioners. Firestone argued two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and many before the U.S. Courts of Appeals as an appellate attorney at the Federal Communications Commission, director of litigation for a public interest law firm, and in private practice in Los Angeles.

Firestone graduated from Amherst College, where he captained the wrestling team, and Duke Law School. He resides with his wife, sculptor Pattie Porter Firestone, in Santa Barbara, California.

Costis Maglaras is the 16th Dean of Columbia Business School, and the David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business at Columbia University. Costis received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College, London, in 1990, and his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1991 and 1998, respectively. He joined Columbia Business School in 1998, when he joined the Decision, Risk and Operations Division. Prior to becoming dean he served as chair of the Decision, Risk & Operations division at the Business School, Director of the School's doctoral program, and was a member of the executive committee of the University's Data Science Institute.

His research lies on the interface between applied mathematics, economics and engineering, with emphasis on stochastic networks, financial engineering, and algorithmic pricing and revenue management. Recent work has focused on market microstructure of electronic (financial) limit order book markets; the diffusion of information over social networks; the economics and control of queueing networks with strategic agents, such as the ones encountered in ride-hailing; and the application of algorithmic pricing in the residential real-estate market. His work has been recognized through several research awards. and he has advised 20 doctoral students that have gone to academia and industry.

Costis teaches courses in the MBA and PhD programs, and he has also received the Dean's award at Columbia Business School for teaching excellence for the core course Managerial Statistics, and the Dean's award for Teaching Innovation for his work on the Technology and Analytics curriculum in Columbia's MBA and EMBA programs.

Outside of the Business School, his experience has been focused on financial technology, asset management and markets, and digital technology. From 1991 to 1993 he served as a research scientist at Canon Research Center America, working on image processing and optical character recognition. In 2007, Costis helped found Mismi Inc., a venture-backed financial technology firm that introduced quantitative trading algorithms and transaction analytics tools to the equities market. Mismi was a broker dealer and an Alternative Trading System (ATS; dark pool). As chief scientist he co-developed all the firm’s IP, built and directed the quantitative research and engineering teams, and served as president of the firm until 2014. In the last decade he has worked with major financial institutions and hedge funds, including a long-standing collaboration with Goldman Sachs’ Global Markets Division focusing on quantitative research and equity trading. He is a Fellow of INFORMS, an Honorary Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, and a Member of the Economic Club of New York. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Athens College.

Costis is married to Niki Kouri and lives in Manhattan with their three daughters.

Erik Bohlin is an expert in telecommunications policy, an inter-disciplinary topic concerned with the impact of digitalization in the economy and society. Erik holds the Ivey Chair in Telecommunication Economics, Policy and Regulation. Its purpose is to enhance Ivey’s research in the area of economic, policy, regulatory, and investment environments of Canada’s digital and telecommunication market. He is Editor-in-Chief of Telecommunications Policy, a premier journal in the field. He is on leave as Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. His graduate degree is in Business Administration and Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics (1987) and his Ph.D. is from Chalmers University of Technology (1995). He is a Member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering, and Past Chair of the International Telecommunications Society, an inter-disciplinary professional society convening conferences on the evolving digital society and policy needs. The Chair is funded by the Ivey Business School as well as by support, from Bell Canada and TELUS, to Western University.

From 2016 until his retirement in 2024, Gerald Rosberg was Senior Executive Vice President of Columbia University. In that role he acted as a senior advisor to the president across all areas of the university, working directly with the provost and other members of the president’s executive team and the university’s academic leadership, particularly on strategic planning and long-term goals.

Before coming to Columbia, Rosberg spent 20 years at The Washington Post Company, later known as Graham Holdings Company, most of that time as senior vice president–planning and development. Prior to joining The Washington Post Company in 1996, Rosberg was with Computer Associates International Inc., where he was senior vice president and general counsel and then senior vice president of business development. Before joining Computer Associates, Rosberg was a partner in the Washington office of Dewey Ballantine, where he specialized in litigation and federal regulatory matters. From 1974 to 1982, Rosberg was on the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School (assistant professor, then associate professor, then full professor). In 1980-1981, he served as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State. Rosberg graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Chief Judge David L. Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and then Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the Supreme Court.

Rosberg is a member of the board of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Jo Groebel is the director of the German Digital Institute in Berlin. Before, he was Director General of the European Institute for the Media and professor of Media Psychology at the Utrecht University, amongst other positions.

Jo Groebel holds visiting professorships at UCLA, St. Gallen Universtity und Amsterdam University. He did reseach in cooperation with the Universities of Harvard, Cambridge, Yale and Columbia. He published books about causes of terrorism and violence, the media and digitization as author or editor, among them are Germany and the Digital World (Groebel & Gehrke, 2003); Television over the Internet (Noam, Groebel, Gerbag, 2004) and Mobile Media (Groebel, Noam, Feldmann, 2006). He was co-founder and is editor of the technical journals Medienpsychologie and Trends in Communication.

Jo Groebel regularly creates surveys for the Guggenheim Foundation, DFG (German Research Foundation) and the Dutch National Science Foundation. He advices companies and governments on media policy and media structure issues, e.g. the former German Presidents Richard von Weizsäcker and Roman Herzog, the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the current Chancellor Angela Merkel, several minister-presidents and heads of government, e.g. Bill Clinton, Willem Kok and Zoran Djindjic.

Jo Groebel was honored with the "Outstanding Contributions Award" of the International Council of Psychologists in Tokyo in 1990 and with the honorary membership of the Association of European Journalists in 2002.

Johannes M. Bauer is Professor of Media and Information and the Director of the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center at Michigan State University. From September 2023 through December 2024, he served as the Chief Economist in the Office of Economics and Analytics at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on information policy, digital infrastructure policy, and the governance of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, 6G wireless, and space communications. He enjoys working with practitioners in business, government, and civic society to develop workable solutions to harness the benefits of advanced technologies for individuals, organizations, and communities.

Joost van Dreunen teaches at the NYU Stern School of Business and is the author of One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games. Previously Joost was co-founder and CEO of SuperData Research, a games market research firm, which was acquired by Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) in 2018. He serves as a startup advisor and is an investor. He also publishes a weekly newsletter on gaming, tech, and entertainment called SuperJoost Playlist. Joost received a MA from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD from Columbia University.

Matthias Kurth was President of the Bundesnetzagentur from March 2001 until February 2012. Bundesnetzagentur is the sector-specific competition authority for telecommunications, postal, energy and railway markets in Germany including frequency management and digital signature. Since 2011 Bundesnetzagentur is planning authority for new extra-high voltage lines. In 2001 and 2009 Mr Kurth was chairman of the Independent Regulators Group (IRG) and the European Regulators Group (ERG), the networks of independent European telecom regulators and was vice-chair of the newly founded Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) in 2010. In 2011 he became chairman of the Independent Regulators Group - Rail (IRG-Rail).

Mr Kurth joined Bundesnetzagentur as Vice President in 2000. Prior he was member of the management of Colt Telecom GmbH as Director Business Development, Law and Regulation. From 1994 to 1999 Mr Kurth worked as State Secretary in the Hesse Ministry of Economics, Transport, Technology and European Affairs. Mr Kurth was member of the Hesse Land Parliament from 1978 to 1994. He was as member of the Hesse government Representative of the State of Hesse in the Regulatory Council for Posts and Telecommunications, cooperating in framing the Telecommunications Act and Representative of the State of Hesse in the Committee of the Regions of the European Union, focusing trans-European networks, information and communications technology, air transport.

Rosa M. Morales is a trusted, results-driven antitrust and complex litigation counsel known for securing critical outcomes in high-stakes matters for Fortune 500 companies, leading institutions, and senior executives. With over a decade of experience, she offers strategic counsel and steady leadership in complex legal challenges across the litigation lifecycle. Rosa is highly valued for her strategic judgment, intellectual rigor, and ability to ensure clarity and firm commercial alignment throughout aggressive legal proceedings.

Rosa’s practice is deeply rooted in key sectors— including health care, pharmaceuticals, wholesale distribution, higher education, technology, labor markets, and financial services. She has extensive experience on matters involving allegations of price-fixing, monopolization, tying, exclusive dealing, market allocation, and group boycotts. Rosa also represents clients in complex antitrust litigation, class actions, and sensitive regulatory investigations, managing scrutiny from the DOJ, FTC, state attorneys general, and congressional committees. She has served as a strategic advisor to General Counsel and Boards on managing antitrust risk, compliance planning, and proactive regulatory response, offering counsel that is both practical and forward-looking.

An active and recognized thought leader in the antitrust bar, Rosa currently serves as Vice Chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and is a contributing editor to the committee’s publication, Quick Look. She is an Executive Committee Member of the NYSBA Antitrust Section and co-chairs its Class Action and Private Litigation Committee. Rosa is a frequent author on emerging antitrust issues in leading publications including Law360, Antitrust Magazine Online, and CPI, and regularly presents at programs hosted by the ABA, NYSBA, AHLA, HNBA, and PLI. She has been recognized by MCCA as a Rising Star and Crain’s New York Business as a Notable Leader in Law.

Thomas Hazlett is the Hugh H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics at Clemson University. He has previously held faculty positions at George Mason University, the University of California, Davis, and the Wharton School, and served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission. A noted expert in regulatory economics and information markets, his research has appeared in academic forums such as the Journal of Law & Economics, RAND Journal of Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Columbia Law Review. He has also written for such popular periodicals as the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Slate, the N.Y. Times, N.Y. Daily News, Reuters.com, Business Week, The New Republic and the Financial Times. His most recent book, The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone, (Yale, 2017), was featured as one of the top tech books of the year at CES 2018.