
Keynote Speaker
RENÉE
DiRESTA
Renée DiResta studies adversarial abuse online, ranging from state actors running influence operations, to spammers and scammers, to issues related to child safety. She is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. From 2019-2023 she was the Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies.
Renée has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations on issues related to technology and policy, including information operations, generative AI, election security, researcher transparency, and more. At the behest of SSCI, she led outside teams investigating both the Russia-linked Internet Research Agency’s multi-year effort to manipulate American society and elections, and the GRU influence campaign deployed alongside its hack-and-leak operations in the 2016 election.
Renee is a contributor at The Atlantic. Her bylined writing has also appeared in Wired, Foreign Affairs, Columbia Journalism Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Yale Review, The Guardian, POLITICO, Slate, and Noema, as well as many academic journals. She has been a Presidential Leadership Scholar (a program run by the Presidents Bush, Clinton, and the LBJ Foundations); an Emerson Fellow, a Truman National Security Project fellow, Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust, a Harvard Berkman-Klein affiliate, and a Council on Foreign Relations term member.
Keynote Speaker
BILLY
BEANE
Considered one of the most progressive and talented baseball executives in the game today, Billy Beane has molded the Oakland Athletics into one of professional baseball’s most consistent winners since taking over as General Manager following the 1997 season. Beane shattered traditional MLB beliefs that big payrolls equated wins by implementing a statistical methodology that led the Oakland A’s, one of the worst teams in baseball with one of the lowest payrolls, to six American League West Division Titles.
That strategic methodology has come to be known as the Moneyball philosophy, named for the bestselling book and Oscar nominated film chronicling Beane’s journey from General Manager to hero to celebrated management genius. Most recently, Beane was named the MLB’s first- ever Executive of the Year in 2018.
Today, Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” philosophy has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, across all industries, as a way to more effectively, efficiently, and profitably manage their assets, talent, and resources. He has helped to shape the way modern businesses view and leverage big data and employ analytics for long- term success.
Beginning in 1999, Beane and former Assistant GM Paul DePodesta shattered antiquated MLB beliefs that big payrolls could mean more wins by implementing an unorthodox (by MLB standards) strategic methodology that led one of the worst teams in the American League to become a perennial postseason contender. Bestselling author Michael Lewis chronicled their journey in his 2003 bestselling book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game; the film adaptation, starring Brad Pitt as Beane, garnered 6 Academy Award nominations in 2012.
Beane’s strategy has since opened the eyes of many top sports executives and CEOs around the country who now utilize the Moneyball methodology. In 2008, Beane even collaborated with Newt Gingrich and Sen. John Kerry in co-authoring an article in the New York Times offering possible remedies for the U.S. health care crisis.
Under Beane, the A’s have adopted an organizational philosophy that stresses plate discipline and pitchers who command the strike zone. Over 16 seasons with Beane at the helm, the A’s have won six American League West titles (2000; 2002-03; 2006; 2012; 2013). In 2012, they secured the AL West title with the smallest payroll in the American League, and with the third smallest AL payroll in 2013. Beane was named Sporting News’ Executive of the Year twice, first in 1999 and again in 2012. He also earned Major League Baseball’s Executive of the Year honors twice by Baseball America magazine, following the 2002 and 2013 seasons. In November of 2001, Beane was named one of Street & Smith’s Sport Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” and in 2004, he was rated 16th on their list of Baseball’s Heavy Hitters.
A first round draft pick of the New York Mets in the 1980 June Free Agent Draft, Beane played six major league seasons as an infielder, outfielder, and catcher for the Mets, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and Oakland A’s. His final season in uniform was 1989 when he was a utility player on the A’s World Championship team. Beane retired as an active player in the spring of 1990 when he joined the A’s front office as the club’s major league advance scout. Former A’s President Sandy Alderson promoted Beane to General Manager in 1997.
A native of San Diego, CA, Beane attended Mt. Carmel High School and UC San Diego, where he studied economics. Beane is the proud father of twins, Brayden and Tinsley, and daughter, Casey. He lives with his family in Danville, California.