To today's session from punch cards to AI, leadership today, tomorrow. This is for leaders who are not sure how to lead in this moment.If you are a leader and feeling stuck to navigate the compounding pace of change, leading the current technology evolution where change is compounding, not slowing. And this session is for you if as a leader you're looking for a North Star to ground your teams and stakeholders. You're in the right session. Dating back to the nineteen sixties when punch cards were used, only 16% of women held management roles and 0% held a Fortune five hundred CEO role. Fast forward to the era of AI, in the defining strategic lever of our time, women now hold 35% of senior leadership roles globally and 11% of Fortune five hundred CEO positions. Nobody will tell you this, but during my more than thirty years in financial services and countless lessons, I ask myself daily, do you want to lead technology, or do you want it to lead you?

As a woman in tech leading through technology shifts for the past thirty plus years, And as a woman in tech leading large scale enterprise wide transformations, both have taught me one thing, that technology is rarely the hardest part. The hardest part is not technology. It's leading people through uncertainty. It's making decisions for people and together with your people when there is incomplete information. It is not about technology, it's about keeping the people in the organization moving with both speed and direction, but not one at the expense of the other. And yet leadership beliefs have remained remarkably constant with people at the center. Leadership today and for tomorrow. How and why can this be? Because the speed and pace of uncertainty is what has changed. It's because the volume of information available for decision making is so vast. When you look at it in 2025, the global data sphere actually reached 181 zettabytes, which was an increase from 2023 of 34% from the 120 zettabytes.

And lastly, because as an organization, moving in one direction has changed with both internal and external complexities that have increased in permutations and combinations of what is possible. And yet the leadership basics have remained remarkably constant with people at the center. Leadership today, tomorrow. The future will belong not to those who go the fastest, but to those who bring the most people with them. And as a woman in tech, I choose to lead technology every day, and I always choose bringing the people with me along the way every day. In a leadership focused on human centric skills that AI cannot simply replicate, so we need to coexist. We need to integrate the two together with people at the center. As of May 2026, over 80% of business leaders engage with AI weekly now, with nearly 32% identifying themselves as experts confirming that everyday AI is no longer optional.

But today's leadership isn't only about adopting tools. It's about managing the human AI collaborative factory and the artisan teams to drive unprecedented innovation. So the leaders who will thrive are those who can guide intelligent workflows with clarity. Because you see, ensuring the human element also remains in control, and then focusing on strategic high value and creative tasks. And just like strategic shifts in technology, it also requires that we have, adjustments and modifications, and we continuously improve our tech leadership as well in order to be successful. From personally leading through technology shifts, I focus on the foundation of what I have to build upon or adjust. Leadership today, tomorrow, with people at the center requires a shift from technical execution to orchestration, focusing on a few elements.

Empowering people, maintaining transparent communication with your people, and cultivating a culture of adaptability for and with people. So the strategic shifts to continually improve our tech leadership using the foundation of people as I've personally and professionally used over the years has these four shifts that are necessary for all of us to adopt to be successful for tomorrow, leveraging our leadership for today.

Move from operator to orchestrator by adopting a strategic mindset. Instead of being the primary technical expert where you're doing the work, enable your team to solve problems leading the work. Focus on why over what. Clearly articulate the business purpose. Clearly articulate the business purpose behind the transformation shift or change explaining how it creates value instead of forcing something on your team. Next strategic shift is to manage the people side of change. Be transparent and communicate often. Reduce anxiety by sharing the roadmap for changes with your people. When information is scarce, rumors fill the void. Implement structured transitions. Pilot small and in and iterate. By doing small, manageable pilots with your team to test the technology before a full scale rollout, This allows you and your team to learn from mistakes with lower risk.

And along the way, redefine roles and responsibilities. Clearly define how the roles of your team members, your business stakeholders will will evolve. If AI or automation is removing routine work, clearly communicate the new higher value tasks that everyone will be responsible for. And the last strategic shift I'm finding myself needing to make for leadership tomorrow is to continue to foster a culture of continuous learning. This is something we have all heard about and practiced in the past. It's so much more important now to encourage experimentation and to make learning part of the daily routine, also yourself being a role model. Shift from know it all to learn it all. As a leader, model vulnerability.

Admit that we don't have you don't have all the answers and that you're learning the new technology alongside your people. These are the basics of leadership that have remained remarkably constant with people at the center. And I have found using that as a foundation, these are the shifts to leverage leadership today for tomorrow. Building organizational resilience depends on key human centered principles that foster trust and clarity, ensuring that technological progress creates more opportunities for workers rather than leaving them behind. This is so critical. In a human centered in a human centric leadership, as AI adoption grows, the ability to connect, to be empathetic, and support employee well-being is a key differentiator.

Soft is strong. Empathy is seen as a source of strength, making leaders to boost morale during periods of uncertainty. Be adaptable and have a bounce forward mindset. Tomorrow's leaders must move beyond traditional command and control to agile distributed leadership because also your tolerance, our tolerance, my tolerance for ambiguity making decisions with incomplete information is a daily reality. As leaders, we must also adopt a bounce forward approach. Instead of simply bouncing back to the old norms and ways of doing things, current leaders are creating new sustainable ways of working, and they're figuring this out together with their teams and business stakeholders. Human machine collaboration. In order to build organizational resilience, we know that effective leaders are already using AI for efficiency, but they need to prioritize human judgment. It doesn't mean that leaders need to be AI fluent or technical experts in AI.

But as leaders, we all must understand how to ask better questions of AI and to interpret the data ethically. Last is purpose driven leadership. Leaders are aligning their organizations with higher purpose, not as a choice, but for long term viability. Gen z and millennials, of some of which you may be, are demanding a purpose driven work culture and drawing closer connections and following leaders who connect daily work with a larger meaningful mission. So every few days, a new headline reminds us of how quickly technology is advancing. I read them, you read them with curiosity and with an awareness that behind every data point, I am aware that there are real people trying to understand what this change means for their work, their families, and their futures. Leadership shows up in how people experience the moment, including each of us. Periods of rapid change demand strong leadership and a deliberate emphasis on people.

I repeat, a deliberate emphasis on people, not an afterthought. Confidence, trust, and a sense of direction do not emerge automatically during disruption. They are shaped by how all of us as leaders show up. So I ask yourself once again, do you want to lead technology or do you want it to lead you? Thank you, everyone, for joining the session this afternoon.