We were thrilled to host DePaul MBA Alumnus Tanner Krause, CEO of Kum & Go for the Economics & Strategy Talk on May 7, 2021.

Kum & Go is a Midwest-based convenience store chain that sells gasoline and retail items. Tanner offered a candid conversation about his background, strategic vision, and the forces influencing innovative decisions for Kum & Go.

Presenter Biography

Tanner Krause is the CEO of Kum & Go, headquartered in Des Moines, IA. He is the fourth generation to lead in the family-owned business. As CEO, Tanner oversees the marketing, operations, human resources, information technology, finance and store development functions. Together, these teams provide support to 5,000 associates in 400 stores across 11 states.

Tanner’s work experience with Kum & Go dates back more than twenty years, when he began working part-time in stores. With nearly ten years of store experience, plus four different internships with Kum & Go, he became a District Supervisor in the Des Moines, IA area in 2013. Following completion of his MBA, he became Kum & Go’s Director of Operations in 2016. In January of 2017, Tanner became the Senior Vice President of Grow People leading all of the human resources functions of the business and in June 2018, Tanner was named President of Kum & Go. In January 2021 Tanner succeeded his father as CEO. Tanner’s passion for Kum & Go’s associates and stores is a highlight in every role he has held within the company. Tanner also provides strategic direction and support to several other businesses in the Krause Group portfolio.

Prior to his Kum & Go history, Tanner worked through the E. & J. Gallo Winery’s Management Development Program, working as a Sales Representative for Wirtz Beverage Group (IL) for two years before joining Empire Merchants (NY) as a Field Sales Manager. He appreciates the opportunities provided to him by the Gallo family, as well as their commitment to skill development and career pathing.

Tanner received two Bachelor’s in Business Administration degrees from Loyola University in Chicago in 2010 – Finance and Economics. Additionally, Tanner is a member of the most successful graduating class in Loyola Ramblers Men’s Soccer history. In 2016, he graduated with a Master’s in Business Administration from DePaul University, concentrating in Business Strategy.

Living in Des Moines, IA with his wife, Hannah, the two share a passion for community betterment. Tanner is a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of Central Iowa. Hannah is a board member of the Food Bank of Iowa. The couple have a young daughter.

Our next Economics & Strategy Talk hosted Professor Joseph Harrington from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who presented “Algorithmic Pricing & Market Competition” on February 19, 2021.

As a result of Big Data and AI, firms can condition prices on high frequency data, tailor prices to narrow submarkets, and more effectively learn in order to discover the most profitable pricing rules. While there are potential efficiency benefits from these advances, concerns have been raised about possible consumer harm. Enhanced price discrimination fueled by customer-specific data may result in a transfer of surplus from consumers to firms. Automated pricing could make markets more efficient by increasing the speed of response to demand and supply changes but could also undermine price competition. Learning algorithms could discover more profitable pricing rules but that could be because they facilitate collusion. Competition authorities have expressed concern with the growing role of algorithmic pricing and there is an active policy debate as to whether legal and enforcement regimes are equipped to deal with it. This talk reviewed the emergence and effect of algorithmic pricing in a variety of markets including pricing by platforms such as Uber, bidding at Google sponsored search auctions by digital marketing agencies, and the use of a third party’s pricing algorithm such as at Amazon Marketplace and in retail gasoline markets. Also explored was a recent case in which firms colluded by coordinating their pricing algorithms and the prospect of collusion autonomously achieved by AI.

Presenter Biography

Professor Joseph Harrington is the Patrick T. Harker Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on collusion and cartels. Prof. Harrington has published more than 80 scholarly papers and given keynote lectures on five continents including addresses at the annual meetings of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics, the Chilean Economic Association, and the German Economic Association.

He has presented before or advised more than a dozen competition authorities including those of Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, and the U.S. He has served as President of the Industrial Organization Society and been a member of the editorial boards of all major journals in industrial organization. He is the author or co-author of Economics of Regulation and Antitrust, The Theory of Collusion and Competition Policy, and the forthcoming Hub-and-Spoke Cartels: Why They Form, How They Operate, and How to Prosecute Them. Reflecting his general interest in strategic decision-making, he has also written Games, Strategies, and Decision Making.

On October 21, 2020, Ralph Chami presented a 1-hour presentation called “The Value of Nature to Our Economic Well-Being” followed by Q&A.

For the longest time, humans have assumed that they are separate from the natural world and that nature provides infinite commodities. These two assumptions helped fuel the industrial revolution, but at the same time, resulted in the abuse of nature and in the climate crisis. We need a new paradigm, a new way of thinking which recognizes that humans are part of the natural world and that nature is a finite input into our lives and livelihood. This realization—of the value of nature—allows us to develop a framework for natural resource valuation that also directly addresses the fundamental collective action problem in environmental protection.

Ralph highlights how their valuation framework uses the lessons of behavioral economics to create values that individual decision makers find credible and relatable, in addition to stimulating excitement or concern that is essential to prompting action around environmental issues. He then discusses how to apply this framework to value forest elephants in Africa and great whales that are found off the coasts of Brazil and Chile. The values they estimate for individual members of these species are significant: $1.75 million per forest elephant and an average of $2 million per whale.

He then discusses how their valuations lead to new designs for environmental preservation and restoration policies. Finally, he sketches how we can build a new economy that partners with the natural world to ensure a sustainable, inclusive and nature-friendly economic growth.

Get a preview of this talk with this 8-minute video.

Read the published paper here.

Presenter Biography

Ralph Chami is currently Assistant Director in the Institute for Capacity Development (ICD), International Monetary Fund, where he oversaw the development and implementation of the internal economics training program for all IMF economists as well as the revamping of the Institute’s external training program for officials from member countries. Most recently, he was Assistant Director and Division Chief in the Middle East and Central Asia Department where he oversaw surveillance and program work on fragile states: Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen, and was Mission Chief for Libya and Somalia. 

He is the recipient of the 2014 IMF Operational Excellence Award for his work on Libya. Previously, he was the Chief of the Regional Studies Division, where he oversaw regional surveillance of 32 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia regions, and the production of the Regional Economic Outlook. Prior to that, he was the Chief of the Middle Eastern Division of the IMF Institute where he oversaw capacity development in that region. He joined the IMF in 1999. From 1991 till 1999, he was on the faculty of Finance in the Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He also served as a consultant to the World Bank, and to the private sector in the US.