Vice President, Artificial Intelligence, Northwestern Mutual
Anju Gupta is vice president of artificial intelligence at Northwestern Mutual. In this role, she is accountable for providing technical leadership, guiding the company’s AI roadmap and collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver business-driven AI solutions. Anju joined the company in October 2020 and has been instrumental in helping to shape Northwestern Mutual’s AI initiatives, including building an ethical framework for implementing AI products. She is also a member of the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute executive steering team, which is a partnership that contributes to the formation of a technology ecosystem and advances southeastern Wisconsin as a national hub for technology. Anju also serves on the AI advisory board for LIMRA/LOMA, the Milky Way Tech Hub Coalition and a few AI startups. She has been recognized as the 2023 Women of Influence by Marquis and has also been awarded the 2024 Top 100 AI professionals in the U.S.
Head of Data & AI Banking, Bank of America
Awais Sher Bajwa is a leader in Data and AI banking, as well as a tech entrepreneur and angel investor. With a career spanning over 15 years, Awais has led over 60 strategic deals, including IPOs, M&A, and capital raises, with a total value exceeding $60 billion. Awais founded Bank of America’s global AI banking practice in Palo Alto. His unique insights into AI adoption within financial institutions as well as the broader AI landscape position him as a distinguished strategic advisor on AI. Prior to his current role, Awais established the software investment banking practice at Bank of America and the digital infrastructure banking practice at Barclays in London.
Awais holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from the University of Oxford.
Associate Director, Data Science, Merck
Data science leader with years of hands-on and leadership experience in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, & Natural Language Processing (NLP). Proven track of successes with developing and implementing impactful AI solutions in both large tech and start-up settings. Currently leading Merck’s flag-ship Gen-AI product in human health. Ex-Meta research data scientist tech lead in AI Infra. Ex-start-up founder in the space of NLP.
Chief Product Officer, Gannett Media
Renn Turiano is Chief Product Officer for Gannett Media. He is an established product leader with 30+ years delivering successful customer experiences. He has deep operational experience and expertise in organizational leadership and end-to-end product development. Previously, Renn served as VP of Product and Design at NBCUniversal where he helped incubate and launch the Peacock streaming service. Prior to Peacock, Renn was at Amazon where he built and led multiple teams, driving the creation of numerous successful products and features. Additionally, he has held product and design roles at RAPP, HTC, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, among others.
Vice President, News Automation & AI Product, Gannett Media
Jessica Davis is VP of News Automation & AI Product at Gannett, which owns USA TODAY and 200+ local news sites across the United States. Jessica also co-chairs Gannett’s AI Council, which governs responsible, ethical and safe use of AI across the company.
She led the launch of AI assisted key points earlier this year by using generative AI to accurately summarize highlights at the top of USA TODAY stories, leading to an increase in average engaged time
General Counsel, SAG-AFTRA
Jeffrey Bennett is General Counsel for SAG-AFTRA. His responsibilities include oversight and management of SAG-AFTRA's Legal, Government Affairs & Public Policy, Professional Representatives, Foreign Royalties & Residuals Analysis, and International Affairs departments.
Bennett's work at SAG-AFTRA has encompassed a wide variety of matters, including collective bargaining agreement enforcement, union governance and advocacy at the federal and state levels on issues critical to our members and our industries. He played a pivotal role in SAG-AFTRA's landmark film foreclosure project, where, for the first time, the union used its security interests in films to effectuate payment of uncollected arbitration awards. His government affairs and policy work includes huge wins for members in the areas of copyright advocacy, music royalty payments, rights of publicity, production tax incentives, pandemic assistance, child performer protections and more.
Prior to joining SAG-AFTRA, Bennett worked at William Morris Endeavor, in private practice representing creative talent in Los Angeles and as a policy analyst for the governor of Alaska. He served as an adjunct professor of entertainment law at Western State University College of Law and was a longtime BookPAL for the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
Head of Applied Innovation Lab, Thomson Reuters
Yulia Pavlova, PhD, is the Head of Applied Innovation Lab at Reuters. At Reuters she is leveraging AI technology to revolutionize the news and media landscape, focusing on enhancing accessibility and discoverability of multimedia news content. Yulia Pavlova is a strategic leader with 15+ years of experience in ML and cloud-based AI technology advancement, driving innovation through strategic research, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and product development. Her team brings value through translating complex scientific concepts into commercially viable AI products, enhancing customer experience, and driving market growth. She has PhD is Scientific Computing, and Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics.
Vice President, Product - Responsible AI & Tech, Salesforce
Rob Katz is Vice President of Product Management in Salesforce's Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology. Rob leads the Responsible AI & Tech team, which ensures that Salesforce's products, software, and services are designed, developed, and delivered responsibly. Prior to Salesforce, Rob worked for Amazon Alexa, Acumen Fund, and the World Resources Institute. He holds a BA from Georgetown and MBA from Stanford.
Head of Conversational AI, Verizon
Bala Maddali is a strategist, influencer, innovator, story-teller, insights-driven product leader who is passionate about the convergence of people, products, experience, and technology.We live in an algorithmic digital world that craves for humanness. He strongly believes human-centered Ai is the secret sauce that blends the digital and the human behavior to humanize the experiences. He leads the Conversational Ai Channels, Product & Customer Experience for the Verizon Consumer group. He has a proven track record in leading and driving strategy, transformation and, commercialization of next-generation Digital experiences, Conceptualizing and enabling industry best and first products to delight customers and enable sustainable growth and value. He is a curious speaker at multiple industry leading customer experience & Ai forums.He has 12 patents in the area of mobile and TV second screen convergence experience, social TV and voice & gesture-based app interactions.
Keynote Speaker and Bestselling Author, "Winning With Generative AI"
Charlene Li is an expert on business transformation strategy and disruptive leadership and the NYT bestselling author of six books, including her latest, “The Disruption Mindset.” She is working on her next book, “Winning with Generative AI.” Charlene has worked with hundreds of top companies, from Adobe to Southwest Airlines, and advised 49 Fortune 100 companies. She has spoken at events like the World Economic Forum, TED, and South by Southwest.
Previously, Charlene was the founder/CEO of the disruptive analyst firm Altimeter Group and Chief Research Officer at PA Consulting. She has returned to her entrepreneurial roots, running her firm, Quantum Networks Group. Charlene graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Business School and was named one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company.
Founder, AI Leadership Institute
Noelle Russell is a multi-award-winning technologist with an entrepreneurial spirit who specializes in helping companies with emerging technology, Generative AI, and LLMs. She has led teams at NPR, Microsoft, IBM, AWS and Amazon Alexa, and is a consistent champion for Data and AI literacy.
Senior Practice Manager, AWS
She is a Senior Practice Manager that started and led customer engagement globally on Responsible AI. Diya leads discussions organizations in various industries on taking intentional action to build trust in AI by uncovering potential unintended impacts, and mitigating risks related to its development, deployment and use. She also meets with legislators and policy makers globally to provide perspective to influence imminent regulation and policy on AI. For the first 15 years of her career, she worked in early-stage companies in consulting and in roles focused on scaling their products for acquisition. She is an international speaker; has been awarded and recognized in the industry for her work in Responsible AI; serves on non-profit boards; mentors through multiple organizations; and guest lectures on responsible and inclusive technology.
Self-Service Design Lead, Capital One
Jay is a manager of Content and Conversation Design at Capital One. With 15 years experience supporting Contact Centers, Jay is passionate about building connected experiences across user journeys.
Chief Advocacy & Strategic Communications Officer, Omidyar Network
Beth Kanter serves as chief advocacy and strategic communications officer at Omidyar Network. In this role, Beth develops and drives the strategic direction for communications and policy efforts. As a member of the executive team, she helps set the longer term vision for the organization, as well as the roadmap to achieve its goals.
Prior to joining Omidyar Network, she worked at Spitfire Strategies, a public interest communication firm that works with nonprofits and foundations to craft and implement winning strategies. Beth served as Spitfire’s chief strategy officer, helping guide the firm’s direction, and managed accounts on a range of issues, including economic inequality, immigration, climate and the environment, reproductive justice, and technology. Earlier in her career, Beth was the senior vice president of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Illinois and the first-ever political director at the Chicago Federation of Labor.
Beth graduated cum laude with a B.A. in political science and English from Duke University.
Managing Director, Global Head of AI Strategy, Huge
Emily leads design and strategy around the future of AI-powered experiences and innovation. She was named one of Insider's “Top 15 Advertising Executives Leading the Industry’s Charge Into Generative AI” and her work with facial recognition, eye tracking, robotics, AR, VR and computer vision contributed to her being selected for Adweek’s “Creative 100” list in 2019.
As a 16-year veteran at design & technology agency Huge, Emily has worked with leading brands including American Express, NBCU, P&G, Google, Thomson Reuters and Gucci, integrating human-centered applications of emerging tech to drive growth. You can find Emily speaking on the future of AI, retail, or digital business at notable events such as CES, SXSW, AI Summit, ShopTalk, FastCompany Innovation Festival, and New York’s Advertising Week.
Head of Digital Innovation, Cathay Pacific
Director of Data Science & AI, Yum Brands
Rockford Yost has over five years of experience at Yum Brands, where he has played a key role in leading and expanding the company’s in-house AI/ML capabilities. He has successfully delivered scaled AI solutions across Yum’s global footprint, driving innovation in areas such as Demand Forecasting, AI Store Supply Automated Reordering, and Labor Forecasting and Optimization. He continues to spearhead impactful AI initiatives that enhance operational efficiency and business performance on a global scale.
VP of Customer Solutions, Tailored Brands
Melissa Porter is the VP of Customer Solutions at Tailored Brands, Inc. She is a transformational and dynamic leader rooted in relationship building and leveraging technology to drive unforgettable B2C, B2B, contact center, and social customer experiences. Yoga instructor and lifelong proliferator of good vibes.
SVP, Development and Engineering Platforms, Dell Technologies
Internationally renowned Cloud Adoption, DevOps/DevSecOps Transformation, and Data Modernization Executive. Industry Analyst, Thought Leader, Technology and Strategy Advisor, Startup Advisor, Keynote Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, YouTuber and bestselling Author. Author of ‘The DevOps Adoption Playbook’, and ‘DevOps For Dummies, IBM Edition’. Keynote speaker at global IT conferences.
Senior Gen AI Research Scientist, The Cigna Group
Roya is a research scientist working on advancing artificial intelligence technologies. She has a PhD in Electrical Engineering, is a US patent holder, and has multiple publications in primary journals on electrical engineering, mathematics, and artificial intelligence. Her primary research interests are generative AI, computer vision, and pattern recognition. Roya has developed machine learning solutions for various applications, including healthcare, assistive technologies, and security.
She is enthusiastic about advancing science and passionate about women’s rights. She is a Google Developer Expert and Cloud Champion in AI/ML, a Google Woman’s Techmaker Ambassador, and a Google Developer Group co-organizer (Cloud Boston). She uses these platforms to enhance women’s confidence in the workplace and advocate for women's and non-binary individuals' rights.
Head of Gen AI Growth & Partnerships, Vody
Andrea “Andi” Huels is an award-winning technology leader dedicated to revolutionizing enterprise operations with AI. Her passion for evangelizing AI solutions is truly infectious. She inspires executives in retail, restaurants, manufacturing, and healthcare to embrace AI to improve customer experience, empower smarter decision-making, and enable operational intelligence. Andi’s deep understanding of AI use cases and extensive deployment experience at F100 companies combined with her strong partnerships in the technology ecosystem, have earned her credibility as a trusted advisor to CXOs.
As one of the “24 AI Influencers for 2024,” Andi has captivated audiences as a keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator at industry conferences around the world. She’s been recognized as one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Technology in 2023," the "World's Top 200 Business and Technology Innovators,” QSR Magazine’s “Top 20 Digital Disruptors,” the "Top 50 Intelligent Automation Influencers,“ a member of the “2023 Women Leaders of Conversational AI,” and the “Top 100 Women in B2B Technology Sales.”
Prior to joining Vody, a GenAI startup, Andi served as Head of AI, North America, for Lenovo ($70B) and in leadership roles at General Electric, ExxonMobil, Dematic, Crane, Imerys, Omron, General Mills, and RadiusAI.
Andi earned a BS in Management with honors from Indiana University and holds a Certificate in AI and Business Strategy from MIT. An avid cyclist, she resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her four children and their English Mastiff, Penelope.
Partner & Industry Strategist, AI, Invisible
Tiarne Hawkins is an innovative leader with over 10 years of experience in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology. She is the host of "You & AI," a series where she engages with prominent figures from various industries across both Public and Private sectors including The United Nations, NASA, Nvidia, Salesforce, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more. Her aim is to help bridge the education gap, making complex concepts understandable to a global audience. Passionate about diversity in AI, she focuses on inclusivity and multicultural perspectives, earning her recognition as a thought leader in AI and technology. Additionally, Ms Hawkins is part of the Make a Wish Australia AI advisory team helping drive utilization of AI for good.
Principal, Digital Services, UnidosUS
Andrew Patricio is the Principal of Digital Services at UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza), where he leads the development of our digital services portfolio. Andrew is responsible for creating an organization-wide strategy that ensures that technology and data are effectively used to advance our mission. He champions innovation across teams via process and technology improvements to provide effective, pragmatic, and sustainable solutions to issues facing the U.S. Hispanic community using current and emergent tools, technologies, and research.
Prior to joining UnidosUS, Andrew led technology teams at numerous public sector agencies. He is the former Chief Data Officer/CIO of the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he led the implementation of the district’s first reporting data warehouse and the successful multi-million dollar replacement of the core Student Information System. He also ran a consulting firm advising multiple clients from the non-profit and commercial startup sectors on how to make effective use of their data.
He has spoken at numerous conferences and currently serves as a board member and technical advisor for Youthbuild PCS, a local charter school serving young people seeking to transform their lives by re-engaging their education in a non-traditional school environment. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois.
Principal Conversation Designer, Zendesk
Marlinda Galapon is a Principal Conversation Designer at Zendesk. Originally, she pursued a career path in nursing, but her curiosity and lifelong love of language, design and the workings of interpersonal relationships led her into the conversation design design field. Drawing on her experience at companies like Yahoo!, Adobe, and Salesforce, Marlinda puts fairness, rigor, and inclusion at the center of her design process, guiding teams toward developing scalable experiences that are efficient, welcoming, and helpful.
Sonic Strategy Director | Studio Resonate, SXM Media
Steve Keller is the Sonic Strategy Director for Studio Resonate, SiriusXM Media’s in-house audio-first creative consultancy, offering support to brands that advertise on the Pandora, SiriusXM, and Soundcloud platforms. He is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on sonic strategy and identity, blending art and science into award winning creative content and sonic systems for a variety of global agencies and brands. His research explores the ways music, sound, and voice influence perception and behavior and can be found in the Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Psychology and Marketing, Frontiers in Psychology, WARC, Expert Journal of Marketing, Music and Medicine, Journal of Multisensory Research, Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, and Journal of Food Quality and Preference.
VP of Business Development, Omilia
Quinn Agen is responsible for growth at Omilia and was part of the journey in evolving the company from a small team in Greece to a large-scale global operation with a Virtual Assistant platform that has supported over a billion customer care interactions in natural language in more than 15 countries. Quinn heads the Omilia sales organization and works directly with large enterprises in identifying new customer needs and developing comprehensive virtual assistants that focus on ROI and operational savings.
Conversation Designer, General Motors
After years working in software development and quality assurance, Gillian decided to pursue a career in UX based on her passion for understanding and helping users. She obtained a degree in Human-Computer Interaction and Design from UC-Irvine and has since worked in the conversational design field, building voice and chat solutions for FinTech companies and now General Motors.
Conversational AI Consultant, Google
Nick Dokich is an enterprise voice/chat bot building expert. For Nick, it is all about getting the right information, to the right person, in the right way, at the right time.
With over 7 years of experience, Nick is focused on building the world's largest and most complex voice/chat experiences. His bots have interacted with over 1/3 of the US population. Currently working for Google, Nick is passionate about helping enterprises build successful voice experiences. He believes that voicebots have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with technology, and he is committed to helping businesses realize that potential.
He has worked with Fortune 500, start-ups, and government organizations, focused on engaging experiences that produce tangible ROI. His voice/chat experiences contain millions of calls each month while providing immensely engaging experiences.
President, TaPtitude Consulting
Tanya Parkins is a visionary leader in digital transformation, hospitality, and contact center innovation. With a remarkable 30-year career at IHG, one of the world’s leading hotel companies, Tanya has consistently excelled in leveraging technology to elevate customer and live agent experiences.
As a strategic leader, Tanya has firsthand expertise in pioneering conversational AI solutions and optimizing agent performance within the hospitality sector. Her transformation initiatives have led to numerous industry firsts, including groundbreaking use cases for speech and text analytics, SMS and messaging services, and the development of the first bot to assist customers in booking hotel room reservations.
Tanya’s innovative approach to business transformation has not only enhanced customer loyalty and satisfaction but also delivered substantial cost savings and incremental revenue through higher conversion rates and average daily rates (ADR). Her ability to drive transformational change has positioned her as a key influencer in the intersection of technology and hospitality.
Conversation Designer, Capital One
Most of the wins in my career have come from connecting people and information they need. In the last 10 years with Capital One, I've been a Conversation Designer and Communications Strategist. My superpowers are storytelling and strategizing.
Sr. Director, Strategic Content, ADP
Rob Myre is the Sr. Director of Strategic Content at ADP. In this role, Rob is responsible for overseeing the strategy, development, and delivery of in-product content for ADP products.
He first started writing content for voice in 2016, and began developing voice skills a year later, creating prototypes to demonstrate how content produced by his team could be rendered effectively in voice. Since the summer of 2023, he has been focused on readying help content for AI consumption.
Rob has been in the content development industry since 1990. He joined ADP in 2002. Prior to that, Rob worked at EDS where, among other roles, he was the Manager of the Documentation and Training department.
Rob has also been an adjunct professor, where he designed and taught graduate-level courses in Information Architecture, Content Strategy, and mLearning Design.
Rob holds a bachelor of Computer & Information Science and master of Professional and Technical Communication from NJIT. He is also a Certified Usability Analyst. You can connect with him on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-myre-55a57610.
Senior Manager | Studio Resonate, SXM Media
VP Technology, North America, Cognigy
Recognized by Gartner as a Digital Experience leader, Derek is a technical and customer-facing strategist leading customer service teams in Conversational AI Automation excellence. As the VP of Technology at Cognigy, Derek delivers insights and an understanding of Conversational AI and chatbots as the next level of automation. For nearly two decades, Derek has focused on greater innovation for enterprises, uniquely combining a passion for technology with an honest dialog about its possibilities in real-world organizational contexts.
Managing Director of Insights, Jobs for the Future Labs
Alex Swartsel is managing director of Jobs for the Future (JFF) Labs's new Insights practice, a growing team that helps decision-makers across the education-to-career landscape understand and prepare for the emerging trends, technologies, and innovations shaping the future of work and learning. JFFLabs’s rapid insights process and transformative trends research agenda focus on core areas impacting the future of work and learning—including AI, the metaverse, climate resilience, lifelong learning, aerospace, robotics, and other emerging fields. Alex is also leading the launch of JFF’s new Center for Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Work.
Alex chairs the board of directors of Capital City Symphony and is also a longtime member and former chorus president of the Choral Arts Society of Washington. She holds a BA summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.
Founder, EnergizeGrowth
Lisa Nirell is on a mission to help mindful leaders cultivate healthy companies and careers.
Organizations such as AARP, Alliance Bernstein, CoStar Group, and Hilton hire Lisa to launch breakthrough growth ideas and fuel high performing teams.
She’s a two-time author, growth strategist, executive coach, open water swimmer, and meditation student.
Search for her award-winning podcast, The Mindful Marketer, wherever you listen. Join her “know ahead” list at themindfulmarketer.com.
Head of Conversational AI Developer Relations, Samsung
Roger is an AI and emerging tech expert and leverages his strategic and technological prowess to drive innovation. As the Head of Conversational AI Developer Relations at Samsung, he is at the forefront of the company's generative AI products and is recognized as an industry thought leader.
Roger serves as a startup advisor and has founded both a Web3 artist focused startup and a voice technology startup. Prior to Samsung, Roger drove Omnichannel technology strategy for Gap Inc. and spent many years as an enterprise architect and technology strategy consultant.
Head of Global Commercial, AI, Welo Data by Welocalize
Sarha Mavrakis's career experience has been rooted in leading global customer success teams and driving operational, customer service and technology implementation excellence across multiple industries including global tech, retail, airlines, and B2B services. Prior to joining Welocalize, she held a Global Accounts leadership roles and was instrumental in developing strategic partnerships with leading tech organizations.
Head of Growth Strategy, Welo Data by Welocalize
Canute Haroldson is the Head of Growth Strategy at Welo Data. He is a long-time believer in the value of automation for good and making AI operations more human and ethical while improving quality. Most recently he worked at Scale AI where he served as the Lead Project Operations Manager for the Public Sector and 2D Commercial verticals.
Lead AI Evangelist, Parloa
Maik Hummel is the Lead AI Evangelist at Parloa and a passionate advocate for AI agents. He has worked in the Conversational AI space for the past six years, focusing on developing AI solutions that enhance customer service and drive Parloa’s GenAI-first strategy. Maik combines his technical expertise with an entrepreneurial spirit, supporting colleagues, customers, and partners in embracing the benefits of Generative AI.
Founder, Outright
Bio to come.
Director of Design & Motion, Outright
Antoine Dickens-Rouse is the Director of Design and Motion at Outright. During his time at Outright, he has led brand and creative direction for clients including YouTube, Google, Marriott International, Adidas x Ivy Park, and more. He uniquely blends technology and creativity in his process, and has a strong focus on leveraging Generative AI and other advanced AI toolsets. He has pioneered groundbreaking storytelling techniques that not only elevate brand narratives but also streamline creative workflows. Early in his career, he created AR ads as a part of integrated marketing campaigns for televised shows and syndicated radio stations for CBS Outdoor, radio.com, and Viacom/MTV Networks. Antoine’s most notable achievements during his design career consist of being a recipient of multiple Clio Awards and ProMaxBDA awards, and a “30 under 30 Award” by Cablefax.
Creative Director, Outright
Kate Gazzillo is Creative Director at Outright. With over 15 years of experience in leading powerhouse teams through emotive, research-backed design, Kate possesses a keen eye for how storytelling with DEI and a11y at its core sparks creative power. She brings her background in theater/film and ballet to the rhythm of making lasting brands. At Outright, she’s led award-winning design for clients like World Resource Institute, Marriott International, Youtube, Opportunity Agenda and NIRH. Kate also has expertise in conversational AI, having designed & shaped the first ever personality-based AI in the higher education space. Her work has been featured in Adweek, Vibe.com, Chicago Sun Times, Washington Post, AgencySpy, been top ranked by BizWomen & boosted by celebrities like Queen Latifah. She often speaks at digital conferences and has certifications in Executive Leadership and UX.
CMO, Kore.ai
As CMO of Kore.ai, Michael leads global marketing efforts, focusing on brand building, product marketing, and demand generation. With over 30 years of experience in customer service and contact center industries, he shapes strategies for enhanced customer and employee experiences. Before joining Kore.ai, Michael spent 23 years at Alvaria, leading various marketing and training functions, including sales and partner sales enablement training and product marketing.
Director of Marketing, Rohirrim
Farah has proven herself to be a creative marketing leader that delivers real business growth. She has the unique perspective of having worked at some of the world's top advertising agencies, like Leo Burnett, Publicis, and M&C Saatchi, and then pivoting to B2B SaaS marketing. After spending a decade working on award-winning campaigns for B2C companies, Farah brought those winning strategies into the B2B SaaS world where she would spend the second half of her career, continuing to prove the power of her unique approach of blending B2C tactics with B2B SaaS GTM.
Founder and CEO, Talkalytics
Verena Papik is the CEO of Talkalytics, a leader in voice-AI technology revolutionizing market research and customer feedback. With over 13 years of marketing experience, including her pivotal role in driving musical.ly to its $1 billion acquisition by Bytedance, she has a proven track record in building highly engaged audiences. Verena leverages voice-driven insights to give brands a smarter, deeper psychological understanding of their customers’ emotions, vulnerabilities, and intrinsic motivations. Her expertise in generative AI and data-driven marketing positions her as a key voice in shaping the future of customer engagement.
New Products Testing at Meta, TEKsystems
Carina is an engineer with a Master's degree in digital marketing and analytics and has been working with Fortune 500 companies for the past 8 years. She leverages her diverse skill set in sales, project management, digital marketing, analytics, and human behavior to bridge the gap between advanced AI technologies and practical, everyday use cases. Whether through developing user-friendly AI tools or leading educational initiatives for wider AI understanding, her goal is to make AI a common tool that enhances efficiency and creativity across various sectors.
Technical Architect, Signet Jewelers
Jubin Thomas is a Technical Architect at Signet Jewelers with over 14 years of experience in the IT and retail sectors, residing in Philadelphia, USA. He has a proven track record of leading transformative technology initiatives and is also an Independent Researcher focusing on Machine Learning and Supply Chain integrations.
As a senior member of IEEE, Jubin is a frequent technical speaker, having presented at major conferences like LambdaConf 2024 , Conf42 Machine Learning conference and BlackIsTech Conference 2024. He has been honored with the prestigious GRA Award and the Titan Business Award in the field of eCommerce, and is a well regarded distinguished judge in several hackathons including IEEE hackathon.
Principal Consultant, Natural Language AI, AWS
Chris Morgan Brown is a Principal Consultant for Natural Language AI in AWS Professional Services. He has been working in the Conversational AI space since 2015. Chris was a founding member of the Snaps, one of the first Conversational AI platforms for building, deploying, and optimizing chatbot experiences (acquired by Quiq).
In 2018, he moved from New York City to Portland, OR to lead Columbia Sportswear in their efforts to in building out their live chat team and chatbot experience. Shortly after launching those experiences for Columbia, he went to Wells Fargo to be the lead product manager for their retail chatbot for two years. Chris joined AWS in May 2021.
At AWS, Chris works with large enterprise customers to design, build, launch, and optimize Conversational AI applications across voice and chat experiences.
Experience Strategy & Product Design Manager, Capital One
Beth is an Experience Strategy & Product Design Manager with Capital One focused on simplifying the customer servicing experience. With 14 years of experience, Beth is passionate about untangling complex ecosystems to orchestrate human-centered strategies, services, and products.
VP of North America, ReadSpeaker
A lifelong educator with a passion for inclusive and assistive technology, Paul Stisser brings a wealth of expertise with over 20 years' experience in Special Education, Assistive Technologies, and At-Risk Students, and 12+ years leading ReadSpeaker's North American Education and Government Solutions teams, advancing to the position of Vice President North America. Paul is dedicated to elevating the online learning and content reading experience through the seamless integration of text to speech and tools enhancing accessibility for eLearning, Learning Management Systems (LMS), and Content Reading in Digital Government services.
Vice President, AI Evangelist, Verint
Frank serves as the AI Evangelist for Verint where he is focused on educating customers and the market about the benefits of all things AI at Verint including conversational AI, generative AI & DaVinci™. He is a teacher-researcher at heart who has a fervent curiosity for innovative technology and ideas that solve real world business challenges. Frank comes to Verint by way of Verint’s acquisition of Speakeasy AI where he was co-founder and CEO. He is a recognized industry leader and speaker on AI, automation, CX, contact center technology and the future of work. He has 10+ years of experience consulting and leading cloud & digital business transformation initiatives with intelligent automation and customer journey orchestration.
President, NAVA
Tim Friedlander is an award winning, Los Angeles based voice actor, studio owner, advocate, and educator.
He is best known for his work on Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man, and as Long Caster in Ace Combat 7.
Most recently you can find Tim as the voice of the PBR (Pro Bull Riders Association) on CBS, Ares in the Netflix show Record of Ragnarok and as the English voice of Navn in the dub of Beforeigners.
Tim is currently the voice of Toymakerz, the, #1 hit show on the Velocity Channel/History as well as the American voice of the Morphee Sleep Aide Device.
In 2016, Tim voiced the new History Channel series Evil Genius, an 8 episode series about the most ingenious crimes of the last 100 years. In 2015 Tim was the winner of the That's VoiceOver/CBS2 Audition Spotlight. Since 2016 Tim has been nominated for 12 SOVAS voice arts awards, including in the Best Political Voice Over, Best Promo, Best Narration, and Demo Production Categories.
Located in the Hollywood area, Tim works out of soundBOX:LA, his custom-built voice over studio equipped with ISDN, ipDTL, SourceConnect and broadcast quality equipment.
As of 2022, Tim is the Founder and President of NAVA, The National Association of Voice Actors as well as co-owner and editor of The Voice Over Resource Guide.
Voice Actor & Vice President, NAVA
Carin Gilfry is an award-winning voice actor, singer, producer, and community leader. She is the vice president of the National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA), and the co-chair of the VOcation Conference. As a voice actor, she has worked with major brands like Volkswagen, FedEx, Apple, Estee Lauder, Pfizer, Citibank, and more, and she is currently the national brand voice of CVS Health. Carin works in every genre of voiceover from video games to training videos to narrating true crime series. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the USC Thornton School of Music and a Master of Music from The Juilliard School.
Voice Actor & Board Member, NAVA
Cissy Jones is an award-winning voice actor whose career spans the gamut from video games and animation to movie trailers and everything in between.
Director of Operations, NAVA
Matthew “Slim da Reazon” Parham is a Los Angeles based voice actor, photographer, poet, and musician born from Cincinnati, Ohio. His interest in Black literature, spoken word, rock, hip-hop, and jazz blend to become a language and lifestyle Parham calls AfroGrunge™. Duality, double consciousness, and the alternative Black experience are themes Parham explores across genre-blending visuals and performance mediums.
Visually, this edgy style is replicated behind his lens through a photographic portrait approach, which relies heavily on darkness and light, black and white, and most often focuses on Black subjects or like-minded creatives. Parham is also a sought-after voice actor, nominated for a Society of Voice Art and Sciences Award in 2022, the VOA Unicorn Award and two One Voice Awards in 2024, with a client list including Marvel,MTV, MGM, PBS, Nike, and DSW.
Matthew is most notably the Director of Operations for the National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA), where his advocacy includes lobbying on Capitol Hill and national panel appearances, while also serving as Community Liaison with the South Los Angeles arts gallery Range Gallery. Since 2017, Parham has been the MC in a 15-piece jazz hip-hop ensemble called The Urban Renewal Project, with whom he has toured nationally in 100+ shows. When he’s not serving the voice-over community with NAVA, voicing projects, performing poetry, or making music, Matthew is finalizing a photography certificate at UCLA.
Senior Program Manager, Wellsaid
Scotty Iseri is the Senior Program Manager of Voice Development at Wellsaid, a leading AI voice platform, where he helps deliver the highest quality synthetic voices to over half of the ruling Fortune 500 brands including LinkedIn, T-Mobile, ServiceNow, and Accenture. In this role, Scotty ensures that WellSaid’s text-to-speech (TTS) technology adheres to the stringent principles of responsible AI, and that the company remains an industry leader in talent relations. Prior to joining WellSaid, Scotty was a producer at Chicago Public media, a fellow at the Center for Asian American Media, and creator and host of the award-winning children's program, ‘The Imagine Neighborhood’.
CEO and Co-Founder, Vixen Labs
Bio to come.
CEO, The Resource Key
🔥Meet Jourdan Saunders, a dynamic innovator whose passion for inclusion and accessibility goes beyond the therapy room. With over 10 years of experience as a Speech Language Pathologist, Jourdan has listened intently to the stories of children and adults with different disabilities who feel left out of their communities. This ignited a fire within her to create change and she has been trailblazing at the intersections ever since.
👩🏽💻Driven by her commitment to promoting greater inclusion and accessibility, Jourdan founded The Resource Key, an organization that aims to ensure that individuals with disabilities and older adults are fully included in the digital landscape.
🔨As an innovator, Jourdan has developed inclusive gymnastics programs and reading literacy initiatives, and even authored the book Our Reading Literacy Kitchen: Fresh Approaches to Target Reading Literacy Skills. But she doesn't stop there. Jourdan has lent her expertise as an advisor to companies and organizations spanning the digital speech therapy, gymnastics, and culinary industry technology platform, to name a few.
📈 Jourdan's leadership has not gone unnoticed. She was awarded LinkedIn Top Voices 2020: Equity in the Workplace and is the creator of one of the first resource websites for students in Speech Language Pathology. Her SLP resources group on LinkedIn boasts over 20,000 members and she was even recognized as a top 100 Speech Language Pathologist impacting the field.
❎ With Jourdan at the helm, inclusivity and accessibility are not just buzzwords, but a way of life. Get ready to be inspired by this creative innovator who is changing the world one intersection at a time.
CEO, Sonaphi
Entrepreneur, Researcher and CEO, Jennifer is leading the company and development of AI screening solutions using vocal biomarkers. This new emerging technology provides healthcare solutions that are accurate affordable and accessible worldwide. The challenges are many but Jennifer sees this as one of the greatest developments in the area of healthcare we have seen yet. She looks forward to joining the Voice AI community to further develop this technology and bring solutions to the world.
Founder and CEO, Quiq
Mike Myer is the Founder and CEO of Quiq, the leader in customer-centric AI for CX. Previously, Mike was Chief Product Officer & VP of Engineering at Dataminr, a startup that analyzes all of the world’s tweets in real-time and detects breaking information ahead of any other source.
Mike has deep expertise in customer service software having previously built the RightNow Customer Experience solution used by many of the world’s largest consumer brands to deliver exceptional interactions. RightNow went public in 2004 and was acquired by Oracle for $1.5B in 2011. Mike led Engineering the entire time RightNow was a standalone company and later managed a team of nearly 500 at Oracle responsible for Service Cloud.
CEO, Learn Prompting
Sander Schulhoff is the CEO of Learn Prompting, an AI research lab and enterprise-grade eLearning platform. He has co-authored award-winning AI research papers with OpenAI, ScaleAI, Hugging Face, Stanford University, and Microsoft. His work on HackAPrompt, the largest AI Safety competition ever ran, was cited by OpenAI and used to improve their models’ resistance to prompt injections (#1 security risk in LLMs) by 30-50%. This paper was awarded Best Theme Paper at EMNLP, the leading NLP Conference, out of 20,000 submitted papers. His latest paper, The Prompt Report, co-authored with OpenAI and Microsoft, is recognized as a foundational piece in the field of Prompt Engineering. Schulhoff has led AI workshops at Microsoft and OpenAI, and has trained thousands of professionals and organizations, including Deloitte, Meta, Microsoft, and more.
Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, Meloscene
Recognized for platinum and gold-selling records across diverse musical genres and labels, Chad Gerber's innovative spirit extends to multiple pending patents in AI, mixed reality, and telecommunications, showcasing his commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology. Notably, he shared insights on artificial intelligence at forums in Washington, D.C., underscoring his expertise in this evolving field and made appearances discussing mixed reality technology on the BBC.
Growing up in Montana, Gerber's early years were marked by a deep intrigue with communication technologies. His childhood experimentation with radio equipment subtly hinted at an innate curiosity and knack for innovative exploration.
His artistic ventures include appearances on esteemed platforms like the Vans Warped Tour, along with tours throughout the US and EU, where his presence among a vibrant community of artists and fans left an enduring impact. Gerber's career signifies a seamless blend of artistry with inventive exploration, leaving an indelible mark in both creative and technological realms.
Digital Strategist and AI Engineer, IV Media
Cavaughn launched his career as a project manager at Alcatel-Lucent after graduating from Rutgers University. Eager to explore his interests in marketing and strategy, he pursued an MBA at NYU Stern's School of Business. After serving as a digital strategist for the Associated Press, Cavaughn diversified his skill set by consulting for various small businesses and large corporations, honing his entrepreneurial prowess.
Driven by a passion for prompt engineering and AI, he founded IV Media, a company specializing in consulting services, digital product management, and development. Cavaughn currently is a lead instructor of Product Development for Realist Labs, an accelerator for non-traditional tech founders to build and scale their startups. Additionally, he's the founder of Daap, an AI-powered networking tool that helps people to retain and re-engage human connections.
Cavaughn's enthusiasm for the convergence of education and technology as a means to facilitate learning is evident in his work. He was admitted into TED's first residency program, where he delved into researching disparities in learning across cultures and geographies. As an innovative prompt engineer and AI enthusiast, Cavaughn is committed to using technology to address these challenges and empower future generations.
Founder, President and CEO, Amruta
Bio to come.
CTO, Allwyn Corporation
Swathi Young is an international keynote speaker, blogger, community-builder, and an award-winning Chief Technology Officer of Allwyn Corporation, where she leads technology and AI/ML implementations at federal and commercial organizations. She has led over 100+ digital projects globally - Belgium, India and the United States across several Fortune 100 companies like GE and Oracle. She is also the CTO advisor of SustainChain, a sustainability startup established by United Nations, to accelerate the UN’s sustainability development goals.
Swathi is passionate about using cutting edge technologies including machine learning and generative AIto increase the performance of organizations. Her projects range from leading engineering teams at Amtrak, launching COVID-19 chatbot and more recently using AI in lung cancer research. She believes that the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and humanities is important to focus on as we lay the foundation of AI applications for future generations. She recently co-authored the Ethical AI framework, to help federal agencies evaluate the ethical outcomes of AI products.
Her work has been featured in Forbes, SXSW, TEDx, international conferences and Medium articles. Outside of the office, Swathi is a brand ambassador for Women in AI, an international non-profit organization whose goal is to increase diversity in AI.
Nonresident Fellow, Center for Global Development
Nii Simmonds is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's GeoTech Center, bringing a wealth of experience in emerging and frontier markets. His expertise spans across technology, innovation, manufacturing, and supply chains.
Nii's career includes leadership positions with Fortune 500 companies, where he spearheaded strategic planning and advised executives on growth strategies. Passionate about Africa's economic development, Nii has a proven track record of implementing successful private sector initiatives that foster entrepreneurship and create jobs. He leverages his deep understanding of emerging technologies, innovative business models, and efficient supply chains to build sustainable ecosystems in Africa.
Nii actively supports early-stage ventures and offers thought leadership on the impact of AI and emerging technologies on society. He previously worked for the World Bank Group and African Development Bank (AfDB), where he developed a program to connect African diaspora professionals with early-stage businesses to drive job creation in Africa.
Nii holds a B.S. in Management from Pennsylvania State University and completed graduate studies at The Wharton School.
Senior Advisor, Open Voice TrustMark Initiative
Oita Coleman serves as a Senior Advisor to the Open Voice TrustMark Initiative, the open-source community of the Linux Foundation. She is responsible for development of the OVON's privacy, security, and ethical use portfolio, and has led the research and development of seminal papers on these critical topics. Ms. Coleman was previously the Vice President, Research & Development for Software Quality at SAS Institute. She resides in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.
Ambassador, Open Voice TrustMark
Emily is a content and conversation designer, professional violinist, and Ambassador for the Open Voice TrustMark. She co-authored the Linux Foundation's Ethical Principles for Conversational AI edX course and their Ethical Guidelines for Voice Experiences whitepaper. She also co-hosts Convers(AI)tions, a series of panel discussions on conversational AI. Other engagements include speaking at Unparsed, the European Chatbot Summit, and Voice & AI 2023. She previously co-hosted the Voice Spark Live podcast and featured as a Voicefluencer on "The Voice Den."
Conversational Designer, Cognigy
As a Conversation Designer, I spend all day trying to get a human brain and a computer brain to talk to each other without either party blowing a fuse. It’s an exciting challenge, particularly given our hardware differences. However, tackling the same goal with two human brains is often just as puzzling (if not more so)!
Having grown up queer and neurodivergent (though not finding those words until much later), I know what it’s like to live at the outskirts of language. For people with non-normative needs or marginalized identities, communication can spell the difference between a life of dignity versus one of alienation. We all deserve to be understood, and I approach my personal and professional life with this in mind.
Google Developer Expert, Objective Consulting
By day, Allen is a Senior Project Engineer at http://spiders.com/ where he’s been instrumental in creating websites and mobile apps for companies and organizations, ranging from the American Booksellers Association to the National Science Foundation. By night he creates tools, software, and tutorials to help people share their stories and improve their digital lives. You'll find him contributing to the LangChainJS open source project, as one of the two hosts of the "Two Voice Devs" podcast, and co-author of the O’Reilly book “Designing and Developing for Google Glass”. He is a Google Developer Expert for Machine Learning, Google Workspace, and the Google Assistant and has been known to occasionally wear light blue shirts.
Conversation Design Strategist, Slang.ai
Rebecca Evanhoe has 12 years of experience in imagining, designing, planning, analyzing, and advocating for engaging conversational experiences. She currently works at Slang.ai, a voice AI solution for restaurants to deliver world-class guest experiences. She teaches conversational UX design as a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute, and co-authored Conversation with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice (Rosenfeld Media, 2021).
Program Manager, Mother Tongue
Bio to come.
Founder, Reconify
Arte Merritt is the founder of Reconify, a platform for analyzing and optimizing generative AI. Previously, he led Conversational AI partnerships at AWS. He was the co-founder and CEO of Dashbot, a leading analytics platform for chatbots and voice assistants, which he led to 20,000 customers, 90 billion messages processed, and multiple acquisition offers. He is a frequent author and speaker on conversational AI and data insights. Previously, he founded Motally, a mobile analytics platform he sold to Nokia. Arte is an MIT alum.
Founder and CEO, Tiga AI
Andre Yee is the Founder and CEO of Tiga, a company focused on using generative AI to amplify human-centric selling .
Prior to Tiga, he was the Founder and CEO of Triblio - a leading account based marketing platform which he successfully exited to International Data Group (IDG), a Blackstone company in 2020. Andre was also previously the SVP Product Development of Eloqua, leading to an M&A exit to Oracle for ~$1B.
He is an author, conference speaker and noted inventor of three software patents. Outside of work, Andre loves focusing on good causes, eating good food and spending time with good people.
President, Strategic Initiatives, Daon
Conor White is part of the core team that founded Daon. He joined the company as Chief Technology Officer in 2001 with the goal of designing and delivering trusted experiences that put human beings back at the center of digital transactions.
In 2015, Conor accepted the role of President of the Americas, where he led all Daon activities across North, South, and Latin America. Then, in 2023, he accepted the role of President, New Industries, where he leads efforts to find Daon’s “next big thing.” Conor has a proven, 25-year track record of innovation in digital identity and cybersecurity.
He is an accomplished inventor, with more than 30 patents in the field of human authentication and has architected some of the world’s highest-performing digital identity systems. Conor is also a frequent speaker at international digital identity conferences on the topics of human identity, biometrics, and cybersecurity. He serves on several technology standards boards, both in the U.S. and abroad, and is a member of Daon’s Board of Directors.
Generative AI Strategist, Deloitte Consulting
Bio to come.
CEO, PeopleReign
Dan Turchin is the CEO and Founder of PeopleReign, the leading AI platform for IT and HR employee service automation. He is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and has hosted over 300 episodes of the popular “AI and the Future of Work” podcast which has a community of more than a million listeners.
Prior to PeopleReign, Dan was the CEO of AIOps leader InsightFinder. Previously, he co-founded Astound, an AI-first enterprise platform for HR and IT, and was Vice President of Product at DevOps leader BigPanda, Chief Product Officer at security analytics company AccelOps (now Fortinet), and a Senior Director of Product Strategy at ServiceNow.
He also served as a founding board member at Rhomobile prior to its acquisition by Motorola and currently serves on the board of Auger, the open source automated machine learning framework.
In 2000, Dan co-founded Aeroprise and served as CEO until it was acquired in 2010 by BMC Software. He is an active angel investor and startup advisor with a portfolio of over 30 companies.
Dan's passionate about building great teams that build great products that solve hard problems that change lives. He’s a big fan of Asimov, Dr. Seuss, youth soccer, adventure sports, and Tynker. Dan has BS and BA degrees from Stanford University. Follow him on Twitter.
Senior ML Developer Advocate, Weaviate
Zain Hasan is a Senior Developer Advocate at Weaviate an open-source vector database. He is an engineer and data scientist by training, who pursued his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Toronto building artificially intelligent assistive technologies. He then founded his company developing a digital health platform that leveraged machine learning to remotely monitor chronically ill patients. More recently he practiced as a consultant senior data scientist in Toronto. He is passionate about open-source software, education, community, and machine learning and has delivered workshops and talks at multiple events and conferences.
Sr. Manager, Machine Learning, Workday
Dalmo Cirne is a mathematician and software engineer who has been passionate about technology his whole life. He has worked in the fields of software engineering and machine learning, both at startups and large corporations, for 30 years—10 of those in management.
Cirne has participated in designing the underlying architecture for and leading the implementation of software solutions used in finance, central banks, and other companies. He published several papers and presented at conferences.
Co-Founder, NeuralDreams AI
Cosmin is an experienced tech professional with a strong understanding of compliance, regulatory, and financial services requirements. Cosmin has worked for companies such as Amazon, AWS, AT&T, Nortel Networks.
Hermenean has a deep understanding of applied artificial intelligence technologies, founding member of NeuralDreams AI Platform and key contributor to Applied Artificial Intelligence open source project.
Student, Middleton High School
I am a rising junior at Middleton High School in Tampa, Florida, with a profound passion for the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence. As an active member of the PLTW Engineering program, I am deeply interested in electrical and computer engineering and am a primary contributor to my robotics team, which includes teams 4997 Masquerade and 1369 Minotaur. My experience also extends beyond school, having interned at Radical AI and Jetson App, where I applied my programming skills to develop their platforms. I also serve as the director of a robotics non-profit and as the SWE director of the Youth Passion Project non-profit. My involvement in these diverse roles has provided unique perspectives on the evolving landscape of AI and robotics. I would like to explore how generative AI can revolutionize robotic learning by enabling machines to adapt and learn more efficiently. With a blend of practical experience and academic curiosity, I believe that I can offer a fresh perspective on the future of robotic intelligence.
HCI Design Engineer, Augmental
Shikha Shah is an HCI Designer specializing in innovative design and technology integration for accessibility. Formerly a Chip Design Engineer at NXP Semiconductors, she shifted to HCI to address accessibility needs. With a Master’s from UC Berkeley, Shikha focuses on Conversational AI and product design. Her work bridges digital and physical AI, reimagining modern-day user interaction.
COO, Eduworks
Benjamin Bell, Ph.D., is Eduworks' COO and a recognized expert in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in simulation, decision support, and human-machine interaction. He has worked in the field for over 25 years, leading AI-focused applied R&D for a diverse range of national security applications. Dr. Bell has a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, M.S. degrees from Drexel and Embry-Riddle, and a B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania.
CTO, Iterate.ai
Brian Sathianathan is the Chief Technology Officer at Iterate.ai. Previously, Sathianathan worked at Apple on various emerging technology projects that included the Mac operating system and the first iPhone.
Principal, Conversational Technologies
Deborah Dahl works on innovative, practical and scalable conversational systems that push the boundary between theory and applications. She is the Principal of Conversational Technologies, which assists its clients in creating state of the art solutions using speech and natural language, technologies. Her clients include startups, large enterprises and government organizations. She has written many technical papers and three books, including Multimodal Interaction with W3C Standards: Toward Natural Interfaces to Everything, published in 2016.
Founder, High Performance Aging
Cherie Lejeune is a seasoned business professional with a rich background in marketing, communications, and entrepreneurship spanning over 30 years. She has a track record of global projects, including successful ventures in international historic photography and sports marketing. Additionally, Cherie has contributed her skills to NBC's The Today Show and various media projects. Currently, she dedicates her time to "warp speed volunteering", providing tech training for her community's aging population and serving on several nonprofit boards. Always eager to learn and teach, Cherie continues to bridge the technology gap for seniors.
Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
Founder and CEO, TEAMCAL.ai
With nearly 15 years of experience in both executive and technical roles at some of the world's leading technology companies, including Sony, Nokia, and Microsoft, Raj Lal is a distinguished leader in the tech industry. He is currently the Founder and CEO of TEAMCAL AI, an AI-powered team scheduling software for enterprise clients, where he is pioneering the development of an AI bot to revolutionize the future of scheduling.
Mr. Lal is also an accomplished author of several influential books on technology and design and holds multiple patents in UI/UX. His expertise in user experience has been honed through his work at Stanford University, and his thought leadership is regularly showcased through speaking engagements at major technology conferences, including W3C, HOW Interactive, Modev, etc.
His deep technical expertise and visionary leadership make him a driving force in shaping the future of AI and user experience in the enterprise space.
Founder and CEO, Innovation+
James Barrood is a prominent figure in the NYC region's entrepreneurial, innovation, and tech ecosystem, with 25+ years of experience in nurturing and supporting startups, growth companies and higher education institutions. He leads a global community of 10,000+ entrepreneurs and innovators, and also leads an executive education program focusing on AI at Rutgers.
James has held various leadership positions, including five years as CEO of TechUnited, one of the largest and most respected membership tech organizations nationwide. He has also led Fairleigh Dickinson University's top-ranked entrepreneurship center for over a decade.
James serves on several boards including AI startups and growth companies. In addition, he is on the board of Princeton’s McCarter Theatre where he is an executive committee member and chair of the diversity committee. Apart from his leadership roles, James is also a global keynoter, two-time TEDx speaker, podcast host, and author. He has authored Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Global Insights from 24 Leaders and Lessons from the Great Recession.
CEO, utter.one
Innovator with 20 years of experience in the broadcast, media and technology. Specializes in voice and conversational AI since 2018. Creator of award-winning solutions for the world's top brands. Led successful strategy and transformation projects within large organizations.
Practitioner of generative AI. Builder of global communities. Believes that the best way to learn is through action and experimentation.
Principal Consultant, AI Solutions, AWS Professional Services
Dipkumar Mehta is a Principal Consultant for AI Solutions in AWS Professional Services, specializing in Conversational AI and Contact Centers. He has been deeply involved in the AI space, helping businesses design, build, and optimize conversational experiences. With a focus on building agentic workflows, Dipkumar now designs AI Agents that perform advanced problem solving, execute complex tasks, and collaborate across multi-agent frameworks to enhance customer service experiences. His expertise includes working with large enterprise customers, leveraging AI to drive innovation in proactive customer engagement strategies.
WW Lead Solutions Architect, Amazon Lex, AWS
With 20 years’ experience in conversational AI and contact center solutions, Thomas Rindfuss serves as a product leader and Worldwide Solutions Architect for Amazon Lex and Bedrock at AWS. He contributes to product roadmaps and offers guidance on best practices for large-scale AI systems. Thomas's areas of focus include generative AI, natural language processing, and conversational AI, with an emphasis on integrating AI agents and knowledge bases. He works to drive innovation where conversational AI, knowledge management, and intelligent agents intersect. Thomas regularly shares insights on human-machine interactions through speaking engagements and technical content.
Principal AI Strategist, audEERING
Soroosh envisions a future where humans interact naturally with non-biological beings, just as they do with one another. As the Principal AI Strategist at audEERING and with over 15 years in the IT industry, he is dedicated to advancing the development of Empathic AI—technology that detects and responds to vocal emotional expressions to create more human-like interactions. Soroosh believes that emotional intelligence is essential for voice-based interfaces, whether for AI assistants, NPCs, or any virtual agents, making them not just smarter but more relatable.
Solutions Engineering Director, Kore.ai
Bio to come.
VP of Business Development, Telnyx
Mclain Roth is the VP of Business Development at Telnyx, where he spearheads new product go-to-market strategies. He is a seasoned expert in the intersection of voice technology and artificial intelligence, with over a decade of experience in developing innovative solutions that enhance user interactions across real-time communications. As a passionate advocate for the transformative power of AI, Mclain has played a pivotal role in shaping voice applications across various industries.
Throughout his career, Mclain has been fortunate to collaborate with a diverse range of companies, building cutting-edge communications solutions. This experience has enabled him to develop low-latency, high-performance AI voice experiences that push the boundaries of technology. He looks forward to demonstrating some of these exciting use cases during his presentation.
Cloud Solution Architect, AIS
Prashant G Bhoyar is a Microsoft AI MVP, Microsoft Business Applications MVP, Microsoft Certified Trainer ( MCT ), and Microsoft Certified Professional. He currently works as Cloud Solution Architect at Applied Information Sciences ( www.ais.com ). He is a trusted advisor and Subject Matter Expert in Conversational AI, Applied AI, Intelligent Business Process Automation, development, and post-implementation adoption of complex custom solutions in AI, Machine Learning, Bots, Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and SharePoint.
Prashant has supported a multitude of government agencies and non-profit organizations in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Prashant is the co-author of the book “PowerShell for Office 365 “and is the technical reviewer of the book "Pro SharePoint 2013 Administration." He serves on the leadership committee for the Azure Data Fest conference, Artificial Intelligence Fest conference, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning User Group, Northern Virginia SQL User Group, and DC Metro Office 365 User Group.
He is a renowned international speaker and actively speaks at technical conferences, most recently in India, Canada, England, Bangladesh, Peru, Washington DC, Austin, New York, Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia. Fun fact??, Prashant is a recipient of the "Antarctic Service Medal of the United States of America" for his outstanding service in Antarctica.
Communications Advisor, Open Voice TrustMark Initative
Janice Mandel is a Communications Advisor and Ambassador for the Open Voice TrustMark Initiative, a project of the Linux Foundation, working on education about and advocacy for AI that fuels discoveries and accessible tools while putting human considerations first and mitigating individual, organizational, and societal risks.
VP, Professional Services, Verint
Paulo Barrett is a practice leader in Conversational AI with extensive expertise in self-service automation. With a proven track record of running operations for two startups, Paulo currently heads the Conversational AI practice at Verint. In this role, Paulo manages a diverse team of technical and design experts. Paulo is passionate about orchestration platforms and is dedicated to leveraging the latest advancements in generative AI to rapidly create and deploy dynamic experiences.
Director, North America GTM Strategy, Parloa
Dan has over a decade of experience working in SaaS, specializing in optimizing business processes to solve complex challenges. As the Director of Parloa's North America GTM Strategy, he leads strategy and works closely with industry-leading partners and business leaders to implement GenAI solutions that drive measurable outcomes. Dan’s unique expertise allows him to address contact center challenges at the true root cause with practical, proven strategies.
Applied Engineer, Deepgram
With a decade of experience spanning veteran tech companies and cutting-edge startups, Jabari is an Applied Engineer at Deepgram, where he's on the frontlines of the Voice AI revolution. After honing his skills at Basecamp (37signals) and spearheading automation initiatives in Cellular IoT at Hologram, Jabari now guides enterprises in leveraging conversational AI with Deepgram's advanced voice solutions. He specializes in tailoring Deepgram's Speech-to-Text, Text-to-Speech, and Voice Agent APIs to clients' unique needs, and loves diving deep into the nitty-gritty implementation details of his clients' use cases. Jabari bridges complex technical concepts with real-world applications, ensuring smooth deployments that go beyond basic integration. His expertise in both the technical intricacies and business implications of AI makes him a valuable asset in optimizing voice AI for enterprise solutions in this rapidly evolving field.
Global Lead, Mother Tongue
Valeria Barbero is Global Lead for Mother Tongue AI where she leads the AI business unit dedicated to projects on conversational, generative AI data curation, HITL (Human in the loop) and content management, working closely with some of Silicon Valley’s top high-tech clients. With a deep connection to her academic background in the social and political sciences, Valeria has been very active in the Ethical and Responsible AI space, exploring the impacts of AI on society. She was co-moderator of the Ethical Use Task Force between 2020-2024 and regularly attends and contributes to local projects in this space as a volunteer. She is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area but life and career have taken her from her native Italy to Ireland, India, London and New York.
