Thursday, November 12, 2026
Jerome Le Grand
Many of today’s biggest business decisions can’t be solved with traditional decision analysis. Climate change, geopolitical instability and shifting regulation mean historical data can mislead rather than guide. Leaders may not know the consequences of their actions or the full range of options open to them. As Covid showed, they may not even know what their objective should be: protect schools, protect the economy, or keep hospitals running?
Yet most executive education is still data-driven, and much of it no longer applies.
Consider:
- A French cognac, champagne or perfume house: How do you plan around on-again, off-again tariffs?
- A social media company: It has broken no laws at home, yet faces mounting litigation over harms to teens, democracy and public discourse.
- Anyone planning for AI: What happens to jobs, the tax base, social stability, careers and universities?
Dr. Eric K. Clemons will show how deep uncertainty differs from ordinary risk, walk through practical techniques for deciding anyway, and work on real problems brought by members of the Wharton Alumni Club.
Dr. Eric K. Clemons
Dr. Clemons is Professor Emeritus of Operations, Information, and Decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently he began the study of decision-making in the presence of deep uncertainty and he now heads the Foundation for the Study of Deep Uncertainty. His research historically focused on the strategic and competitive implications of information technology. He was a pioneer in the development of the field of information economics within business schools. He did early studies of industries where eCommerce would and would not provide opportunities for primary producers like airlines and consumer packaged goods companies to sell online. He studied areas where outsourcing could and could not be managed safely. He explored where innovations could provide competitive advantage and where they could best be implemented less expensively as consortia. He studied products that sold most effectively with online “word of mouse” referrals rather than traditional advertising. He shifted focus to areas where research could benefit entire societies rather than individual companies or industries. He was among the first researchers to study Google’s monopoly on online search, as distinct from and more powerful than online advertising. He was among the first to study social media’s role in manipulation of public opinion and its ability to influence elections and referendums, and among the first to model mechanisms to control disinformation campaigns on social media.
Dr. Clemons taught and conducted research in diverse industries, including travel, finance, insurance, consumer packaged goods, non-profits, and the military. He has taught and conducted research in the US, and in Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and the UK. He created and for more than 30 years directed Wharton’s Funded Research Program on Strategic and Competitive Information Systems. He has an S.B. in Physics from MIT and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Operations Research and Computer Science from Cornell University.
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