Panelists

Todd Buelow

Over 25 years of experience managing digital products and serving as a catalyst for growth. Before founding Dualboot Partners and Bella Tunno, Todd was a founding member of Elogex (Sold to One Network Enterprises), Cloud Logistics (Sold to E2Open), and Castle Digital Partners. Todd is a tech investor and is active in social change. He serves on the boards of Speedway Children's Charity, American Football Without Barriers, and Bounce Out the Stigma and previously was Board Chair for the Charlotte Rescue Mission and SIM Charlotte. Todd lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife Michelle and daughters Riley and Ella.

Michelle Collins

Michelle Collins is Vice President of Solution Engineering at Salesforce, where she leads a team of Solution Engineers supporting Retail and Consumer Goods customers across the United States. A proud UNC alumna, Michelle earned her MBA from the University of North Carolina in 2014 after earning her BA from the University of Georgia in 2008. Her work is centered on guiding Salesforce customers to harness the power of AI for the enterprise — accelerating productivity to deliver business outcomes and exceed growth targets. Michelle brings a passion for innovation and a deep commitment to helping organizations thrive in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Brandon Sink

As chief financial officer, Brandon Sink is responsible for all of Lowe's financial functions and processes. This includes corporate finance and treasury, strategy, retail finance, pricing and promotion strategy, accounting, tax, internal audit and risk management. He joined Lowe's in 2010.

Brandon has more than 25 years of finance and accounting experience. Prior to his current role, he served as senior vice president, retail finance, where he oversaw finance for stores, merchandising, supply chain, omni and marketing, providing financial leadership on strategic and operational issues, and partnering with the business to develop strategic direction and drive performance against business goals. He has also served as vice president, merchandising finance, vice president of enterprise strategy, and vice president and corporate controller. Before joining Lowe's, held finance and accounting leadership roles at Deloitte and Nucor Corporation.

Brandon earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a certified public accountant licensed in the state of North Carolina.

Sriram Venkataraman
Sriram Venkataraman is a big-data scientist with expertise in pricing, social-media analytics, advertising, retailing and branding. He serves as UNC Kenan-Flagler's Professor of Marketing and is an Edward M O'Herron Scholar.

He develops state-of-the-art quantitative methods to maximize return-on-investment from marketing activities. His research has been adopted by Fortune 100 companies in industries that include entertainment, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, technology and consumer packaged goods.

Dr. Venkataraman holds several patents and consults with firms like GE, Sony, Disney, Cox, Coca-Cola and SAS. He also serves as an advisor to prominent full-service analytics start-ups that provide business intelligence solutions in data-intensive industries.

He previously served as associate dean of the Full-Time MBA Program and MBA@UNC. An award-winning teacher and researcher, Dr. Venkataraman previously served on the faculty of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and as a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago's Booth School.

He received his PhD and MS in management from Cornell University and his BS from the University of Poona, India.