Saloni Firasta Vastani

Associate Professor in the Practice of Marketing Emory University, Goizueta Business School

  • Atlanta GA

Pricing Strategy, Monetization, and Innovation

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Biography

Dr. Saloni Firasta Vastani joined the faculty in 2016 after an extensive career in corporate America. In her 20-year career, Vastani has developed expertise in business strategy, pricing, and analytics. She has experience in the travel and technology industries in both domestic and international markets including South America, Asia, and Europe. She has solved business problems through insightful data analytics, grounded research, and leading cross-functional teams to implement the strategy. Notable clients include Bain Capital, Riverside Private Equity, BCD Group, Deloitte, and The Weather Channel.

Vastani’s research interests are focused on pricing strategy and innovation management. She is interested in how buyers consciously and subconsciously process price information, remember it, and use it to make purchase decisions. Her work is published in both academic and business journals. Vastani teaches a course in Pricing Strategy and Analytics. She is a frequent speaker in both, industry and academic environments on Revenue Management Strategy, Pricing Analytics, and Leadership.

Over the years, Vastani has served in leadership roles at Fortune 100 companies such as American Airlines and Verizon. Vastani started her career at American Airlines and was responsible for bringing financial discipline into American Airline's processes. At Verizon, she successfully launched B2B products into the market and was the pricing leader over Internet products. She has also been a part of M&A deals and founded a start-up company

Vastani is passionate about community service and serves as an advisory board member for JScreen, a public health initiative by Emory University and the Marcus Foundation. Previously, she served as an advisory board member for Persian Initiative at Michael C. Carlos Museum and Diabetes Leaders Forum at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Education

Georgia State University

Doctorate

Business Administration

2015

Goizueta Business School, Emory University

MBA

1995

University of Bombay

BBA, Accounting

1993

Areas of Expertise

Innovation & Commercialization
Pricing Strategy
Market Research
Predictive Analytics
Customer Segmentation
International Marketing
Monetization Models

Publications

Role of customer attributes on absolute price thresholds

Journal of Services Marketing

Saloni Firasta-Vastani & Kent Monroe

2019-09-05

This paper aims to examine how customer heterogeneity influences absolute price thresholds in a service industry.

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Balancing Coordination and Autonomy During Post-Acquisition Within A High-Tech FirmBalancing Coordination and Autonomy During Post-Acquisition Within A High-Tech Firm

International Journal of Innovation Management ·

Saloni Firasta-Vastani, N Barqawi, K Syed, L Mathiassen

2016-04-15

Drawing on dynamic capability theory (DCT) and focusing on structural integration and informal coordination, we study how the two management teams collaborated over a two-year period to sustain SmartTech’s innovation capability while at the same time leveraging it as part of GlobalTech’s position and future path. In conclusion, we present a process model with related action strategies for how organizations can orchestrate a dynamic capability to manage the coordination-autonomy dilemma post-acquisition.

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Book: Purpose Driven Pricing

Routhledge

Saloni Friasta-Vastani and Jagdish Sheth

2024-07-29

Pricing is frequently used as a key strategic lever for management to increase profitability. However, price can also be used as a lever for societal good. This book demonstrates how effective use of price can have positive societal impacts, such as helping to reduce carbon emissions, accelerating the adoption of eco-friendly products, and improving people’s health outcomes and quality of life.

This book, written by two leading thinkers on pricing strategy and practice, makes the important link between the ideals of purpose in organizations and the crucial tools of how to implement change using one of the fundamental levers at the disposal of the organization. It introduces the concept of leveraging the power of pricing for both profit and societal good and then clearly explains how it can be done. Price can be used to manage demand, incentivize consumer behavior, and influence change. The impact can be effective and quick, and it is not far-fetched to say that pro-social pricing can be utilized to preserve the environment, educate citizens, promote arts, alleviate poverty, and improve health. The book outlines how corporations, governments, civil society organizations, and collaborators can use pricing power to manage the adoption of products and services across B2B and B2C. Pricing strategies include innovating, unbundling, unpackaging, collaborating, implementing new monetization models, and applying learnings from behavioral pricing.

Executives of corporate and business strategy and those dealing with brand portfolios, sustainability, social and health equity will find profound insights in this book. It will also be valuable in executive training and for graduate students.

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In the News

Even as food prices rise, consumers aren't stopping shopping

NPR  radio

2022-11-22

With food prices increasing, a traditional Thanksgiving dinner will cost more this year. About 20% more, according to the Farm Bureau.

Consumers continue to shop despite the rise in prices, according to Dr. Saloni Firasta Vastani, a professor at Emory’s Goizueta Business School.

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Thanksgiving Prices

Newsy  tv

2022-11-22

Newsy Weekend Debrief 11 20 22 GBS Vastani

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Inflation and Prices

WSB  tv

2022-01-28

Some coverage on WSB TV on what is driving prices up and causing inflation. Labor shortage plus supply chain issues are the key culprits. Why is the labor force is not back?

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