Adriana Velsa
Founder & CEO
MarketTecNexus, LLC

International Most-Trusted Consultant in AI Business Systems and Business Process Engineering, NeuroAI Implementation Architect, Data Management, Certified Brain Science Leadership and Human Performance Mastery Expert, Best-selling Author

Named one of the “10 Most Empowering Women Leaders of 2021”, Adriana Vela is a multiple award-winning entrepreneur, award-winning author, AI strategist, NeuroAI implementation architect, and certified business and leadership coach.

Her enterprise successes include launching dozens of products, driving technology industry standards, leading million-dollar initiatives, and defining new markets in high-tech. As an entrepreneur, she has been quoted or featured in journal publications such as The Milken Institute Report: ‘Minds-to-Market’ and the San Diego Business Journal; in magazines like PM Networks, PharmaTech Europe, SmallTimes, Hispanic Business, San Diego Magazine, and Industry Era Magazine.
Adding to her AI consulting and advanced technology expert, she specializes in brain science performance optimization. She is a trained and Certified Professional Behaviors Analyst, a Certified Professional in Driving Forces, and a Certified Professional in Emotional Intelligence. She created the Human-First Performance Systems™, Coaching-as-a- Benefit™ (CaaB) system, and the Fix-My-Brain-Adriana™ series.

Adriana is the author of the best-selling book, “Brain Science for the Soul – Time to Update Your Leadership Playbook!”. In her book, she focuses on her study of cognitive sciences and the scientific research of innovative neuroscientists. She gives meaning to the intersection and relationship between the brain and the soul, which ultimately impacts everything and everyone around you – the workplace, companies, partnerships, and relationships.

As the founder of MarketTecNexus, she blends her 15 years of experience in global Fortune 500 companies with 18 years in entrepreneurial ventures and client projects providing solutions that address challenges caused by the rapid pace and magnitude of innovation-driven disruptions.

Chetan Gupta is a visionary and a leader in the field of Industrial AI. At Hitachi, he is the GM of the Advanced AI Research Center in Japan, leads the Industrial AI Lab in NA, and leads the Global AI CoE. He is proud to be a part of one of the strongest teams in applied AI that is building fundamental horizontal technologies for industrial and societal AI, building solutions across verticals, and opening new research frontiers in AI applied to real world challenges. Chetan has close to 200 papers and patents in applied AI, data mining/machine learning, data stream systems, complex event and related topics. Chetan holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and M.S. in Mathematical Computer Science and Chemical Engineering.

Dr. Chetan Gupta
Head of AI Research
Hitachi

Chetan Gupta is a visionary and a leader in the field of Industrial AI. At Hitachi, he is the GM of the Advanced AI Research Center in Japan, leads the Industrial AI Lab in NA, and leads the Global AI CoE. He is proud to be a part of one of the strongest teams in applied AI that is building fundamental horizontal technologies for industrial and societal AI, building solutions across verticals, and opening new research frontiers in AI applied to real world challenges. Chetan has close to 200 papers and patents in applied AI, data mining/machine learning, data stream systems, complex event and related topics. Chetan holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and M.S. in Mathematical Computer Science and Chemical Engineering.

Frode Odegard
Chairman and CEO
Post-Industrial Institute

Frode Odegard studies how enterprises, investors, and policymakers can best navigate the transition to a post-industrial civilization and economy. He is the founder of the Post-Industrial Institute, which provides advisory, educational, and strategic services to corporates and investors to help them turn disruption into opportunity. Frode is also the founder of the Post-Industrial Forum, a global community formed to develop and promote a better understanding of the post-industrial transition and how to navigate it. Its members include investors, executives, founders, and policymakers.

Dr. Ivan Poupyrev
Founder and CEO
Archetype AI

An award-winning inventor, engineer and technology innovation director, with a track record of success, Ivan brings over 20+ years of experience in leading cross-functional teams to deliver cutting edge technical and product innovation. With deep technical expertise in spatial computing and interaction design, advanced sensors and natural interaction, mobile and wearable devices, he led development of many new technologies shipped in millions of products for such companies like Google, Disney, and Sony, as well as Adidas, Levi’s, YSL and others. He is currently leading a nascent

Ivan’s has over 100 issued US patents and his work has been published extensively in scientific conferences such as ACM SIGGRAPH, CHI, and UIST. He was honored with awards, such as the National Design Award for Interaction Design and Consumer Technology Association’s Technology Achievement Award. Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, elected his work into its permanent collection and Fast Company magazine described him as “one of the best interaction designers in the world.” In 2021, he was also honored by the Carnegie Foundation as a “Great Immigrant. Great American.” for his contributions and actions that have “enriched and strengthened our society and democracy”.

Leslie Shannon
Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting
Nokia

A Silicon Valley-based futurist, Leslie Shannon focuses on identifying connectivity-related tech disruptions and opportunities, including developments in robotics, drones, visual analytics, cloud gaming, generative AI, and especially augmented and virtual reality.

Leslie is the author of the book Interconnected Realities, a look at the current and future development of XR and spatial computing, and, with Catherine D. Henry, Virtual Natives, an examination of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s use of digital technologies is revolutionizing how humans relate to both computers and each other.

Stefan Petzov
VP Innovation and Partnerships
Swisscom

Stefan Petzov is leading Swisscom’s Innovation Lab in Silicon Valley. In this role, he is responsible for identifying and evaluating new technologies and services. Stefan is also responsible for strategic innovation initiatives and works closely with the senior leadership to ensure that Swisscom is always at the forefront of innovation.

Dr. Suresh Sunderrajan brings over 25 years of experience and a passion for innovation at the intersection of technology and business. He focuses on developing SRI’s commercialization strategy and provides overall leadership for the institute’s commercialization efforts. Sunderrajan oversees SRI Ventures, Global Partnerships, the Nomura-SRI Innovation Center (NSIC), SRI Products and the Center for Innovation Strategy and Policy (CISP).
Previous to SRI, Sunderrajan was Associate Laboratory Director for Advanced Energy Technologies at Argonne National Laboratory. He earned a doctorate in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University and a master’s degree in system design and management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sunderrajan holds more than 30 U.S. patents and has received the Distinguished Inventor Award at Eastman Kodak.

Dr. Artem Harutyunyan
Co-Founder and CTO
Bardeen Inc.

Artem is an engineering leader and co-founder of Bardeen Inc., where he serves as CTO. With deep expertise in distributed systems and cloud computing, Artem has led engineering and product teams at Mesosphere and Qualys, driving innovations in distributed systems, real-time data processing, and large-scale computing and storage infrastructure development. Before his career in industry, Artem worked at CERN, contributing to the research and development of the computing infrastructure of LHC experiments. He holds a PhD in Computer Science.

Alison McCauley
Founder and CEO
Unblocked Future

Alison is Founder and CEO of Unblocked Future, a consultancy that drives adoption at the forefront of emerging tech, and has been working with pioneers in artificial intelligence since 2010. Her focus in on the human dimension of unlocking business value from transformative technology, and she has helped executives to navigate and inspire tech-driven change for over 20 years. Working at the nexus of the enterprise, disruptive innovation, and organizational change at the birth of many categories, Allison serves as a trusted advisor to both pioneers building new markets and the business leaders seeking to leverage new technology.

Alison is the author of international best-selling book Unblocked (published by O’Reilly Media, 2019), her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Venture Beat. Over 90,000 students have taken her course created for LinkedIn, and she is a speaker at conferences around the world.

Angelo Del Priore
Founding Partner
HP Tech Ventures

Angelo has played nearly every role in the venture ecosystem, including investor, board member, advisor, early startup employee, and acquirer. He has helped numerous tech companies grow from 0 to 1 as well as $1B and beyond. His primary expertise is in strategy, business development, negotiations, and financial analysis.

Currently, Angelo is a founding partner at HP Tech Ventures, where he leads investments in AI, Data Science, AR/VR, Hybrid Work, and Edge Computing. He is on numerous boards, including at AdHawk Microsystems, Mobalytics, Mojo Vision and Owl Labs.

Dušan Vuksanovic
CEO, Silicon Valley Outpost
Swisscom

Dušan Vuksanovic is a global leader in the cybersecurity and innovation space, currently serving as the CEO of Swisscom Outpost in Silicon Valley, where his primary focus is cybersecurity. With over 15 years of experience, including his role as a former CISO, Dušan has a deep expertise in security management across information security, physical security, and safety. He has successfully developed corporate security programs, fostered a security-conscious culture, and effectively managed security risks.

Dušan’s industry experience spans telecommunications, information technology, blockchain, healthcare, education, robotics, human resources, supply chain, finance, and mergers & acquisitions. He has worked in various organizational environments, including startups, SMEs, and large enterprises in countries such as Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico.

Dušan also serves as an advisor and coach, providing guidance in the areas of cybersecurity, innovation, and leadership, and holds positions on advisory boards across multiple countries.

Laureen Knudsen
Chief Transformation Officer
Broadcom

Laureen has led enterprise transformations in four global companies.  She works with industry leaders and internal experts to define the future of business and bring Lean principles to all parts of an organization, focusing on optimizing end-to-end value stream flows, removing waste, and ensuring executives can make data-driven decisions. 

Laureen is the Co-Author of Modern Business Management: Creating a Built-to-Change Organization. Laureen is a Forbes Technology Council Member and she is also on the Forbes 2021 Top 100 Women in Tech list.

Joe McMorrow
VP, Supply Chain Transformation
Cisco

Joe McMorrow leads a global team that drives supply chain strategy and execution to deliver a secure, adaptable and sustainable supply chain. Under his leadership, Supply Chain transformation has led multiple transformational efforts that positioned Cisco’s supply chain to recover, learn and evolve from the recent global supply chain challenges. Joe is the executive sponsor of supply chain’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiative, where he oversees enterprise-level transformational efforts to achieve Net Zero by 2040, embed circularity across Cisco’s entire product portfolio, and responsibly source and manufacture products.

Joe joined Cisco in 2008 and has focused on designing and implementing cross-functional capabilities that support the achievement of complex, multi-year transformations. He has held a variety of leadership roles within Supply Chain Operations, including Senior Director of Component Operations and Transformation and Director for Global Supplier Management and Supply Chain Transformation.

Joe began his career journey in a manufacturing at the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group working as a Manufacturing Industrial Engineer. Joe then joined Intel Corporation’s a Manufacturing Systems Engineer, before moving into engineering management. Joe holds a degree in Manufacturing Engineering from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, MA.

Pandian Angaiyan
CTO – Tech & Media
Tech Mahindra

Dr. Pandian Angaiyan heads the technology office for Tech Mahindra’s Technology Business as CTO based out of San Jose office. He has three decades of experience in incubating & leading computing businesses based on niche technologies, which gives him the right tools to lead disruptive digital transformation initiatives for Tech Mahindra’s customers.

In his previous role, he has lead the Cloud Innovation Business for a global consulting company where he has played the role of Cloud Transformation Partner for several customers, helping define their cloud strategy, building a minimum viable products and eventually transforming them into full- fledged solutions. He also incubated and built platform based Cloud services group and established ‘High Performance Computing Practice’ with integration and acquisition of niche technological expertise and provided a differentiating solution benefiting major customers. Dr. Pandian has two decades of experience in various computing technologies starting from embedded systems all the way to hyper scale architectures.

Dr. Pandian has a Ph.D., in symbolic and numeric computational algorithms for real time applications from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and has a Masters of Technology in Computer Engineering from Mysore University, India.

Dr. Natalie Han
VP & Chief Product Officer, GenAI
SAP 

Natalie Han is a visionary leader in AI and data science with over a decade of experience driving innovation at companies like Google, Intuit, LinkedIn, and now SAP. She leads product development for Generative AI applications in Business AI at SAP.  She has spearheaded transformative projects, including AI-driven models and platforms, contributing to significant product advancements, user engagement, and business outcomes. With deep expertise in Generative AI and large language models, she excels at creating data-driven strategies that influence product and business decisions.

Originally from Inner Mongolia, Natalie holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and has completed postdoctoral research at Stanford University on Medical Images Processing. She was recognized as the top 50 Women Leader of San Jose for 2024. 

Papi Menon
CPO / VP of Product, Outshift by Cisco
Cisco

Papi is the CPO / VP of Product Management for Outshift by Cisco, whose charter is to discover the next transformational business opportunity for Cisco by incubating emerging technologies and serving new markets and personas. At Outshift by Cisco, Papi leads the Product Management, Design, and Business Development functions. Prior to joining Cisco, his experience in product leadership included executive roles at HashiCorp, GitHub, MuleSoft, and Docker, to name a few. Experienced as a product leader in both Product Led Growth (PLG) and Enterprise go-to-market models, he has successfully built and scaled product organizations for multiple world class developer-focused and cloud products.

Mick Costigan leads the Salesforce Futures team, helping Salesforce leadership and customers anticipate, imagine and shape the future, with a focus on AI, sustainability, customer experience, and work. Mick has two decades of experience in innovation and futures at Salesforce and in strategy consulting across four continents. He was also a Salesforce Fellow in the AI policy team at the World Economic Forum.

Dr. Trond Undheim
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Stanford University

Trond is a futurist, scholar, podcaster, and venture partner, and an expert on the evolution of technology and society. He is a Research Scholar in Global Systemic Risk, Innovation, and Policy at the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (SERI) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University. He is also a venture partner at Antler, and a co-founder of technology foresight consulting firm Yegii. Formerly with Tulip Interfaces, Hitachi Ventures, MIT, WPP, Oracle, and the EU, Trond is the co-author (with Natan Linder) of Augmented Lean (2022), he is the author of Health Tech (2021), Future Tech (2021), Pandemic Aftermath (2020), Disruption Games (2020), and Leadership From Below (2008). He hosts the Futurized podcast and is a Forbes columnist in manufacturing.

Trond’s work has featured in a variety of business, industrial, and mainstream media, including The Boston Globe, NPR’s Cognoscenti, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, IndustryWeek, and MIT News. He holds a Ph.D. on the future of work and artificial intelligence and is based between Wellesley, MA, and Palo Alto, CA.

Col. David Vernal (Ret.)
Sloan Fellow, Stanford GSB
fmr. National Security Council

David Vernal is a retired Air Force colonel with experience in intelligence and cyber operations. He participated in electronic warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the counter-terror fight in Iraq and Syria, the growth of cyber operations, supporting nuclear planning and command-and-control at U.S. Strategic Command, and managing policy deliberations as part of the National Security Council staff. His final active-duty assignment was as Director of Intelligence for Sixteenth Air Force, the service’s information warfare headquarters.

Currently a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, David is studying the applications of Large Language Models for national security applications. He holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a master’s in Taiwan Studies from National Chengchi University, where he studied as a Department of Defense Olmsted Scholar.

Vishy Gopalakrishnan
Chief Transformation Officer
ServiceNow

At ServiceNow, Vishy works with customers to define and drive transformational outcomes using the ServiceNow platform. Prior to ServiceNow, Vishy worked at AT&T where his roles included enterprise transformation, corporate strategy, innovation, and product management. Prior to AT&T, his work experience includes stints at SAP, Nokia, Ernst & Young, and Motorola.

Vishy is a member of the visiting faculty at the University of California, Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET). He is a co-author of Work Goes Mobile (Wiley & Sons, 2006).

Amir Arhangi
CEO and Founder
Skyfire

(Bio pending)

Peter Marcotullio
VP of Commercial R&D
SRI

With more than 20 years of business development experience, Peter Marcotullio directs commercial sector business development for SRI International. Focusing on strategic, long-term partnerships with clients, he directs market research and analysis, intellectual property management, commercialization and business strategy development, new venture creation, and marketing. Peter holds five patents, and he led the creation of several SRI venture companies.

Before joining SRI, Peter was a venture manager with Thermo Technology Ventures based in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he participated in the founding and financing of more than a dozen new companies. At Primex Technologies (acquired by General Dynamics) Peter led research, development and planning for the $500 million defense and aerospace firm that was spun-out from Olin Corporation in 1996.

Peter holds a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University. He has taken graduate and executive management courses at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Stanford University School of Business. Marcotullio is also a graduate of the Defense Acquisition University’s Defense Systems Management College.

Dan Isaacs
General Manager
Digital Twin Consortium

Dan Isaacs is Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of Digital Twin Consortium® (DTC™), where he is responsible for driving the technical direction for the Member Consortium, liaison partnerships and business development support for new memberships. Dan is also the Chief Strategy Officer for Object Management Group® (OMG®), where he develops and implements a comprehensive strategy to align OMG consortia (AREA, CISQ, DTC, OMG Standards Development Organization, and Responsible Computing).

Previously, Dan was Director of Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Xilinx where he was responsible for emerging technologies including AI/Machine Learning, including defining and executing the ecosystem strategy for the Industrial IoT. Prior to joining the Digital Twin Consortium, Dan was responsible for Automotive Business Development focused on Automated Driving and ADAS systems.  Dan represented Xilinx to the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC). He has more than 25 years of experience working in automotive, Aerospace and consumer-based companies including Ford, NEC, LSI Logic and Hughes Aircraft.

An accomplished speaker, Dan has delivered keynotes, presentations and served as panelist and moderator for IIC World Forums, Industrial IoT Global conferences, Embedded World, Embedded Systems, and FPGA Conferences. He is a member of international advisory boards and holds degrees in Computer Engineering: EE from Cal State University, B.S. Geophysics from ASU.

Ronald Rubens
Founder and CEO
SentioCX

(Bio pending)

Jacob Liberman
Sr. Manager, Enterprise GenAI Product Management
NVIDIA

(Bio pending)

Dr. Susmit Jha
Technical Directo
Neuro-Symbolic Research Group
SRI

Dr. Susmit Jha is a Technical Director in the Computer Science Laboratory at SRI International , where he leads the research group on Neuro-symbolic Computing and Intelligence. His research focuses on combining formal methods, machine learning, and control theory to build trusted artificial intelligence and correct-by-construction autonomous systems.

Before joining SRI, Dr. Jha was at Intel Strategic CAD Labs and Raytheon Technologies Research Center at Berkeley. At Intel, Dr. Jha’s research received a Division Recognition Award in 2012 and a Research Technology Scoping Award in 2014.

Del Jha is the recipient of the 10-year Most Influential Paper award at IEEE/ACM ICSE 2020 . He has published over 80 peer-reviewed publications with over 3400 citations in AI, ML, and automated reasoning venues such as NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, ICCV, AAAI, IJCAI, JAR, PLDI, and CAV. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has named Dr. Jha to the Information Science & Technology (ISAT) Study Group beginning in July 2023. The group identifies new areas of development in computer science and information technology and to recommend future possible research directions. The ISAT Study Group was established by DARPA in 1987 to support its technology offices and provide continuing and independent assessment of the state of advanced Information Science technology as it relates to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Dr. Jha completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2011, where his thesis work on “Automated Synthesis Using Structurally Constrained Induction and Deduction” was supported by the Berkeley Fellowship and was awarded the Leon O Chua Award.

Kevin Novak
Managing Partner & Founder
Rackhouse Venture Capital

Kevin Novak is the Founder of RackHouse Venture Capital. He served  as Uber’s first Head of Data Science, its first Head of Data Science Platform, and was one of the early members of a Uber Freight (Uber’s innovative freight marketplace). Kevin was the inventor of Uber’s dynamic pricing product. He has also served as Chief Data Officer for Tala Financial, an alternative underwriting lender, helping the world recognize the creditworthiness of those without traditional financial identities.

Kevin has invested in firms like Standard Cognition, Volley Automation, and several dozen others. He was one of the founders of the Greylock Data Science Community and regularly advises universities around the US on data science curricula.’

Kevin earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics with a double-minor in Math and Computer Science from Xavier University, as well as a Master’s in Physics from Michigan State University.  He holds several patents around GPS points processing, marketplace optimization products, and using data science to improve the mobile experience.

Benjamin Levy
Partner, Co-Head of Venture Capital and AI & Innovation Groups
Ares Management Corporation

Mr. Levy is a Partner and Co-Head of the Ares Venture Capital Group, BootstrapLabs, an Ares company, where he focuses on venture capital investing. He is also Co-Head of the AI Innovation Group, which focuses on driving internal AI strategy.

Prior to joining Ares in 2024, Mr. Levy was Co-Founder and General Partner at BootstrapLabs, a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley with an applied AI investment thesis since 2015, where he worked with AI portfolio company founders to build and scale technology, products, teams, and operations. Additionally, Mr. Levy was an entrepreneur who launched, built, and exited two startups in the financial technology space, including Praedea Solutions, a data mining software company using machine learning and natural language processing technology, that was acquired by Mergent in 2005, and InsideVenture, a software platform that connects the founders of venture-backed pre-IPO startups and long-only institutional investors on Wall Street, that was acquired by SecondMarket in 2009 (and is now part of NASDAQ).

Previously, Mr. Levy was a Technology, Media, and Telecom Investment Banker at Lazard, SG Cowen, Houlihan Lokey, Wedbush Securities, and QuantumWave Capital where he advised CxOs of Fortune 500 companies and startup founders on mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy and financing. Mr. Levy is a member of the Association for the Advancement of AI (AAAI). He is a frequent industry speaker on topics such as innovation, technology investing, entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence in the US, Europe and Asia. He is currently a member of the board of Looq AI, IUNU, and Southie Autonomy, among others. He holds a B.S. from the University of Paris IX Dauphine in Finance and Economy and an M.B.A. in Corporate Finance from the University of Paris X Nanterre, where he graduated as valedictorian.

Chester Leung
Co-Founder, Head of Platform Architecture
Opaque Systems

Chester Leung is Co-Founder and Head of Platform Architecture at Opaque Systems, a Series A startup building the confidential data and AI platform that empowers teams to extend their enterprise data pipelines with a confidential layer, enabling faster insights with less effort and verifiable privacy and control. Previously, Chester was a computer science graduate student at UC Berkeley, where he published peer-reviewed papers at top conferences and also served as a lead maintainer of the open source MC2 project for secure collaborative analytics and machine learning.

ABOUT OPAQUE

Opaque is the confidential AI platform unlocking sensitive data to securely accelerate AI into production. Created by world-renowned researchers at the Berkeley RISELab, Opaque’s user-friendly platform empowers organizations to run cloud-scale, general purpose AI workloads on encrypted data. Opaque supports popular languages and frameworks for AI, including Python and Spark, and enables governed data sharing with cryptographic verification of privacy and sovereignty. Opaque customers deploy high-performance AI faster and eliminate the tradeoff between innovation and security.

Gerald Brady
Managing Director
Silicon Valley Bank

Gerald Brady is the managing director for Silicon Valley Bank leading the firm’s SVB Network which focuses on building the bank’s relationships with Fortune 500 CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, CMOs and other C-level executives. SVB Network brings senior executives together to connect with the bank’s clients, who are the entrepreneurs at the forefront of technology innovation, spanning every industry sector, as well as the venture capital investors backing these companies. Through a variety of events and programs, executives, entrepreneurs and investors can compare notes on sectors, share insights on technologies and trends, including SVB’s own strategic insights, connect with their peers and together explore ways to collaborate more efficiently.

Prior to joining SVB, Brady served as the director of investor relations for Siemens AG, where he was responsible for all aspects of investor communications in North America. Before that, Brady was an acquisition director in the Strategic Planning Group at Siemens Corporation, and served as a managing director of Siemens Acceleration USA, which is the early stage venture capital arm of Siemens.

Brady has also worked at 3i in London and Palo Alto, where he was a director, investing in a number of technology businesses, including ActiveCard (ACTI), Bitfone (acquired by HP), Raw Communications (acquired by Thomson Financial) and Winery Exchange. Prior to his work in finance, Brady worked in the Internet and media industry, was part of the UK launch team for ZDNet in 1995, a sales manager for Yahoo! UK when it launched in 1996 and an executive at Ziff-Davis and EMAP Plc.

Brady holds an honors degree from Kingston University, an MBA from Cranfield University and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Brady served as chairman of the NVCA’s Corporate Venture Group from 2006-2007.

Dr. Shelby Heinecke
Senior AI Research Manager, Agentic AI
Salesforce

Dr. Shelby Heinecke is a pioneering leader in AI, renowned for her transformative research, engineering excellence, and dynamic thought leadership. As the co-author of over 25 influential AI research publications, she has made significant contributions to the field, driving innovation and shaping the future of AI.

Shelby is currently a Senior AI Research Manager at Salesforce, leading a team innovating in AI Agents (including multi-agent systems and large action models), On-Device AI, and Small Language Models, all aimed at revolutionizing Salesforce products. Her passion for fostering technical talent and cultivating collaborative environments empowers her team to achieve breakthrough advancements.

Prior to her role at Salesforce, Shelby honed her expertise at industry giants such as Intel, IBM Research, MITRE, and the Department of Defense. Her diverse experience equips her with a unique perspective and a robust skill set that bridges theoretical foundations and practical applications.

Shelby holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a specialization in machine learning theory. She also earned an M.S. in Mathematics from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). To learn more about Shelby’s work and vision, visit www.shelbyh.ai.

Neerka Tandon
Head of Commerce Transformation
Cisco

Neerka Tandon leads Cisco’s Commerce Quote to Order IT organization. In this role, she is responsible for managing and operating $50B across multiple business models, various market segments, ecosystem of partners, distributors, and customers. Her vision is to bring together the expertise and technology to transform and connect the underlying Opportunity to Booking and Renew to Booking architecture, technology, and platforms to accelerate profitable growth and drive operational efficiency.

She is a technology leader with 20+years of experience with eCommerce, CPQ, Quote to Order, and driving digital transformations. She is known for being well-rounded with a solid track record of business outcomes delivery through business and technology innovation, agile transformation, and operational excellence. She has hands on experience leading geographically dispersed and diverse teams in an Enterprise scaled environment spanning across eCommerce eco system as well as Partner Business to Business (B2B) Integrations for Hardware, Software, Subscriptions, SaaS, and Consumption based Business Models across multiple Routes to Market. Neerka is highly versatile with depth and breadth on multiple dimensions –technical, solution architecture, program management, and business insight.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Dharmsinh Desai University and a master’s degree in Business Administration and Technology Management from the University of Phoenix.

Outside of the office, Neerka can be found spending time outdoors walking, hiking, and capturing photos. Neerka lives in Fremont, California.

Manjeet Singh
Sr. Director of Product Mgt., Einstein AI and AgentForce
Salesforce

Manjeet is Senior Director of Product Management for Salesforce AI and Agentforce platform. Previously, he has held VP of products @ IRM and Head of Products roles at ServiceNow. He is passionate about building AI powered products and staying super fit to create a long term impact in the world.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MBA in product innovation and marketing from Leavy School of Business Santa Clara, California.

Jessica Swank
Chief People Officer
Box

Jessica Swank has a proven track record helping companies define and amplify their people and culture strategy (including diversity, talent development, employee experience, workforce planning, people analytics, and internal communications). She has been with Box since December 2018, and currently leads all People (HR), Belonging, Community (including Box.org), Places (workplace services and real estate), and Internal Communications. Prior to Box she led the People team at Blue Bottle Coffee, a high-growth global coffee company. Previously, Jessica led HR for Aruba, a fast-growing subsidiary of HPE, and spent ten years at HP/HPE in a variety of global HR roles. Her early career included executive search and recruiting for CEO’s, CFO’s and other key leadership positions.

Jessica is passionate about creating compelling cultures that enable employees and organizations to thrive, and where employees feel welcomed and celebrated for who they are. Jessica is an advocate of sustainable growth that gives back; for helping the communities where we live and work better in all that we do.

Jon Seneger
Senior Advisor
Nordic Innovation House

Jon Seneger is an award-winning innovator with over 18 years of experience in software architecture, AR/VR technologies, and platform development. Currently he is serving as a Senior Advisor at Innovation Norway, where he oversees key sectors including communications, mobility, logistics, autonomy, and energy transition. Previously, Jon led global R&D initiatives as Head of Advanced Technology Explorations and Senior Product Manager at Volvo Car Technology USA LLC, collaborating with industry leaders like Google, Microsoft, Bose, and Nvidia on advanced projects in audio, AR, AI, driver observation, and ADAS.

Aman Sirohi
VP, CISO & Platform
People.ai

Security technology leader with broad experience envisioning and delivering a wide range of Security solutions in complex, multi-stakeholder environments globally. Proven capability to partner with senior executives to identify tangible value drivers, gain alignment across Business/Technology teams, and drive capabilities that deliver security and value to the customer.

Aman is passionate about security and helps organizations to build deep levels of trust with customers, employees, and partners. This passion of his has driven him to standing-up high performing teams that deliver transformational outcomes for customers and partners in fast-paced technology environments in various enterprises. A people-first leader with diverse business experience leading global teams in Technology, FinTech, and Retail & Supply Chain. Throughout his tenure, he has been considered a trusted advisor and strategic problem solver who enables the business to deliver to customers while raising the bar quickly.

Areas of expertise: | Security updates to Board & Customers | Risk & Compliance Management (PCI, SOC2, Data Privacy, Cloud Computing, CAS) | Enterprise Security | Threat & Vulnerability Management | Security Strategy | Program Maturity & Benchmarking | Secure Software Development Framework | Product & Cloud Security | Security Operations | Forensics & Investigation | Vendor Security Management | Security Awareness |

Guidewire:
During his time at Guidewire, he lead and management and growth of the Cyber Security organization across both product and enterprise security. During this time, he was accountable for developing the program maturity to the board and actionable strategies that deliver measurable results across Guidewire.

Ross Stores:
At Ross, he led and managed the Cyber Security team accountable for developing actionable strategies that deliver measurable results in an ever-changing security landscape.
Areas of focus – Program Strategy & Maturity, Identity & Access Management, Vulnerability Management, Network & Host Security.

Accenture Management Consulting:(Cisco, Vodafone, Verizon, Sprint, MCI, Marriott)
He was responsible for the E2E implementation of International & Domestic logistics and New Technology implementations. In addition, he delivered initiatives in the US and 29 emerging markets, including Brazil and India.

Arti Arora Raman
Founder & CEO
Portal26

Arti Raman is the founder and CEO of Portal26, formerly Titaniam, an award winning enterprise GenAI Governance, Responsible Use, and Data Security Platform. Arti was nominated for 2023 Cyber Person of the Year, Won the 2022 Titan Business Awards for Female CEO of the Year and Female Entrepreneur of the Year, 2022 Tech Trailblazer, 2023 SVBJ Women of Influence, and 2023 Data Power Women of the year. Under Arti’s leadership Portal26, formerly Titaniam, has been recognized over 20 times in 2022-23.

About Portal26: Portal26, formerly, Titaniam enables enterprises to safely adopt Generative AI technologies while managing and mitigating risks associated with Shadow AI, employee education, data security, privacy and compliance. Portal26 leverages its award winning platform to deliverGenAI monitoring, visibility, prompt analytics, policy creation and enforcement, risk management and employee education, while at the same time providing critical business context and metrics that enable business leaders to effectively organize their teams and workflows around game changing Generative AI technology. With Portal26, enterprises can finally have a solid foundation upon which to build GenAI driven processes.

Sujatha Sundararaman
Head of Search, Understanding and Voice, YTM
Google

Sujatha Sundararaman heads Engineering for Voice, Search, Generative AI and industry at Youtube Music (YTM), a division of Google/Alphabet. Sujatha leads YTM’s overall search, conversations & voice strategy across all modalities of consumption including speaker and screened devices. Sujatha leads engineering for multi-modal generative AI including text, image, video and music generation. Sujatha has many years of experience in high-tech across Networking, Data Centers, Security, Health care and Search through engineering leadership roles at Cisco Systems, a couple of start-ups, VMware and now at Google.

Sujatha holds multiple technical patents as well as graduate degrees in Computer Engineering, Mathematics and Business. She is an alumna of BITS Pilani India, the University of Cincinnati(UC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Leslie Shannon
Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting
Nokia

A Silicon Valley-based futurist, Leslie Shannon focuses on identifying connectivity-related tech disruptions and opportunities, including developments in robotics, drones, visual analytics, cloud gaming, generative AI, and especially augmented and virtual reality.

Leslie is the author of the book Interconnected Realities, a look at the current and future development of XR and spatial computing, and, with Catherine D. Henry, Virtual Natives, an examination of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s use of digital technologies is revolutionizing how humans relate to both computers and each other.

Artem is an engineering leader and co-founder of Bardeen Inc., where he serves as CTO. With deep expertise in distributed systems and cloud computing, Artem has led engineering and product teams at Mesosphere and Qualys, driving innovations in distributed systems, real-time data processing, and large-scale computing and storage infrastructure development. Before his career in industry, Artem worked at CERN, contributing to the research and development of the computing infrastructure of LHC experiments. He holds a PhD in Computer Science.

Laureen Knudsen
Chief Transformation Officer
Broadcom

Laureen has led enterprise transformations in four global companies.  She works with industry leaders and internal experts to define the future of business and bring Lean principles to all parts of an organization, focusing on optimizing end-to-end value stream flows, removing waste, and ensuring executives can make data-driven decisions. 

Laureen is the Co-Author of Modern Business Management: Creating a Built-to-Change Organization. Laureen is a Forbes Technology Council Member and she is also on the Forbes 2021 Top 100 Women in Tech list.

Papi is the CPO / VP of Product Management for Outshift by Cisco, whose charter is to discover the next transformational business opportunity for Cisco by incubating emerging technologies and serving new markets and personas. At Outshift by Cisco, Papi leads the Product Management, Design, and Business Development functions. Prior to joining Cisco, his experience in product leadership included executive roles at HashiCorp, GitHub, MuleSoft, and Docker, to name a few. Experienced as a product leader in both Product Led Growth (PLG) and Enterprise go-to-market models, he has successfully built and scaled product organizations for multiple world class developer-focused and cloud products.

Vishy Gopalakrishnan
Chief Transformation Officer
ServiceNow

At ServiceNow, Vishy works with customers to define and drive transformational outcomes using the ServiceNow platform. Prior to ServiceNow, Vishy worked at AT&T where his roles included enterprise transformation, corporate strategy, innovation, and product management. Prior to AT&T, his work experience includes stints at SAP, Nokia, Ernst & Young, and Motorola.

Vishy is a member of the visiting faculty at the University of California, Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET). He is a co-author of Work Goes Mobile (Wiley & Sons, 2006).

Daniel R. Isaacs
CTO and GM: Digital Twin Consortium
Chief Strategy Officer, Object Management Group

Dan Isaacs is Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of Digital Twin Consortium® (DTC™), where he is responsible for driving the technical direction for the Member Consortium, liaison partnerships and business development support for new memberships. Dan is also the Chief Strategy Officer for Object Management Group® (OMG®), where he develops and implements a comprehensive strategy to align OMG consortia (AREA, CISQ, DTC, OMG Standards Development Organization, and Responsible Computing).

Previously, Dan was Director of Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Xilinx where he was responsible for emerging technologies including AI/Machine Learning, including defining and executing the ecosystem strategy for the Industrial IoT. Prior to joining the Digital Twin Consortium, Dan was responsible for Automotive Business Development focused on Automated Driving and ADAS systems.  

Dan represented Xilinx to the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC). He has more than 25 years of experience working in automotive, Aerospace and consumer-based companies including Ford, NEC, LSI Logic and Hughes Aircraft.

An accomplished speaker, Dan has delivered keynotes, presentations and served as panelist and moderator for IIC World Forums, Industrial IOT Global conferences, Embedded World, Embedded Systems, and FPGA Conferences. He is a member of international advisory boards and holds degrees in Computer Engineering: EE from Cal State University, B.S. Geophysics from ASU.

Kevin Novak
Managing Partner & Founder
Rackhouse Venture Capital

Kevin Novak is the Founder of RackHouse Venture Capital. He served  as Uber’s first Head of Data Science, its first Head of Data Science Platform, and was one of the early members of a Uber Freight (Uber’s innovative freight marketplace). Kevin was the inventor of Uber’s dynamic pricing product. He has also served as Chief Data Officer for Tala Financial, an alternative underwriting lender, helping the world recognize the creditworthiness of those without traditional financial identities.

Kevin has invested in firms like Standard Cognition, Volley Automation, and several dozen others. He was one of the founders of the Greylock Data Science Community and regularly advises universities around the US on data science curricula.’

Kevin earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics with a double-minor in Math and Computer Science from Xavier University, as well as a Master’s in Physics from Michigan State University.  He holds several patents around GPS points processing, marketplace optimization products, and using data science to improve the mobile experience.

Neerka Tandon
Head of Commerce Transformation
Cisco

Neerka Tandon leads Cisco’s Commerce Quote to Order IT organization. In this role, she is responsible for managing and operating $50B across multiple business models, various market segments, ecosystem of partners, distributors, and customers. Her vision is to bring together the expertise and technology to transform and connect the underlying Opportunity to Booking and Renew to Booking architecture, technology, and platforms to accelerate profitable growth and drive operational efficiency.

She is a technology leader with 20+years of experience with eCommerce, CPQ, Quote to Order, and driving digital transformations. She is known for being well-rounded with a solid track record of business outcomes delivery through business and technology innovation, agile transformation, and operational excellence. She has hands on experience leading geographically dispersed and diverse teams in an Enterprise scaled environment spanning across eCommerce eco system as well as Partner Business to Business (B2B) Integrations for Hardware, Software, Subscriptions, SaaS, and Consumption based Business Models across multiple Routes to Market. Neerka is highly versatile with depth and breadth on multiple dimensions –technical, solution architecture, program management, and business insight.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Dharmsinh Desai University and a master’s degree in Business Administration and Technology Management from the University of Phoenix.

Outside of the office, Neerka can be found spending time outdoors walking, hiking, and capturing photos. Neerka lives in Fremont, California.

Benjamin Levy
Partner, Co-Head of Venture Capital and AI & Innovation Groups
Ares Management Corporation

Mr. Levy is a Partner and Co-Head of the Ares Venture Capital Group, BootstrapLabs, an Ares company, where he focuses on venture capital investing. He is also Co-Head of the AI Innovation Group, which focuses on driving internal AI strategy.

Prior to joining Ares in 2024, Mr. Levy was Co-Founder and General Partner at BootstrapLabs, a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley with an applied AI investment thesis since 2015, where he worked with AI portfolio company founders to build and scale technology, products, teams, and operations. Additionally, Mr. Levy was an entrepreneur who launched, built, and exited two startups in the financial technology space, including Praedea Solutions, a data mining software company using machine learning and natural language processing technology, that was acquired by Mergent in 2005, and InsideVenture, a software platform that connects the founders of venture-backed pre-IPO startups and long-only institutional investors on Wall Street, that was acquired by SecondMarket in 2009 (and is now part of NASDAQ).

Previously, Mr. Levy was a Technology, Media, and Telecom Investment Banker at Lazard, SG Cowen, Houlihan Lokey, Wedbush Securities, and QuantumWave Capital where he advised CxOs of Fortune 500 companies and startup founders on mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy and financing. Mr. Levy is a member of the Association for the Advancement of AI (AAAI). He is a frequent industry speaker on topics such as innovation, technology investing, entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence in the US, Europe and Asia. He is currently a member of the board of Looq AI, IUNU, and Southie Autonomy, among others. He holds a B.S. from the University of Paris IX Dauphine in Finance and Economy and an M.B.A. in Corporate Finance from the University of Paris X Nanterre, where he graduated as valedictorian.