Hitha Herzog (formerly Prabhakar) lives in a world where fashion, retail, finance, investigative journalism and data research all co-exist in perfect harmony—a.k.a., New York City. She is the Chief Research Officer of H Squared Research LLC a data driven, research firm for registered investment advisors. She is also consumer spending columnist at US News and World Report and author of the book "Black Market Billions: How Organized Retail Crime Funds Terrorists" published by FT Press. Hitha also uses her expertise in the retail space to advise start-ups in Silicon Valley and with Parsons The New School of Fashion incubator XRC Labs while teaching a class on social commerce. When she is not expanding her business and advising early stage companies, she is raising awareness about the criminal activity linked to the black market and counterfeit products. She created a companion app to the book available in iTunes to help people identify and spot counterfeit merchandise sold on the black market. Forbes magazine recently named her as “one of the most influential South Asian women in the United States.”