ai-adoption
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Simon Loong and the advantages of starting over
After 15 years in banking, Simon Loong went back to school and came home with a different plan. The WeLab founder is still finding reasons to become a beginner.
Sega Cheng Left Google to Build the Company That Could Survive Him
He traded a coveted engineering career for a karaoke startup, then rebuilt it around cloud, data and AI. The enduring project was never a single product. It was learning how to change without losing the plot.
Deb Wolf Knows What to Build When the Playbook Runs Out
Across 35-plus years in technology marketing, she has learned to prefer the difficult middle: the moment when a promising company needs a system, a team, and an honest answer about what comes next.
Eileen Canady Is Giving AEC’s AI Conversation a Human Voice
The English major who learned finance now translates AI for an industry built on precision - with research, disciplined storytelling and a microphone passed to the people doing the work.
Nicole Sanders Is Building the Human Layer Enterprise AI Forgot
The Foxtrot Services co-founder learned inside Lockheed Martin and Palantir that complicated systems succeed only when people trust them. Now she is turning that lesson into a company built around the unglamorous work between an AI demo and a dependable operating tool.
Andrea Tarrell Built the Missing Middle Between Marketing and Machines
She entered the Salesforce ecosystem for a free trip to San Francisco. She left it, eight years and eight months after founding Sercante, having proved that strategy, systems and human judgment belong in the same room.
Dux Raymond Sy
Dux Raymond Sy is a technology executive at AvePoint, a Microsoft Regional Director, and a long-time Microsoft MVP who has spent more than two decades helping commercial, education, and public sector organizations navigate digital transformation. He is the author of 'SharePoint for Project Management,' the creator of the LinkedIn Learning course 'How to Build Your Personal Brand,' and host of the #ShiftHappens podcast. A sought-after keynote speaker, he has presented to more than 25,000 people at events worldwide including Microsoft Ignite and the Gartner Digital Workplace Summit.
Yiorgos Nikoletakis
Yiorgos Nikoletakis is the co-founder and CEO of 100mentors, an Athens- and San Francisco-based edtech company that started as a platform connecting young people with mentors worldwide and has since pivoted into generative-AI skilling for organizations. A Fulbright scholar with degrees from AUEB, Ohio State, and Columbia, he describes his job as teaching people to ask better questions, use GenAI well, and keep humans in the loop. His personal motto: arguing like he's right, listening like he's wrong.
Stephanie Ferguson
Stephanie Ferguson is Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's Global Demand Center (GDC), the unified engine that powers all of Microsoft's global digital customer engagement. With 25+ years at Microsoft and a career that spans IBM, the insurance industry, and a family fashion business, she built the GDC from the ground up — combining data, digital marketing, and AI into a single connected sales-and-marketing machine. A Wharton MBA and Dartmouth economics graduate, she is also a passionate advocate for equity in education and served as Board President of the Bellevue Schools Foundation.