Sessions: WomenTech Global Conference

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Session	Speaker	Share to Vote
Paula Sappington Sr. Director, Digital Research & Experimentation at Hilton	Synchronized Success: The Evolution of Hilton's Research & Experimentation Program Learn how Paula evolved her organization from one part-time optimizer to a pivotal, integrated team of qualitative and quantitative researchers. Discover how this intrepid team de-risks the design process, explores new opportunities for innovation, optimizes the customer journey, and enhances experiences for guests around the globe. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
TRANG WATSON CFO at evrylo.com	Being a CFO in the Age of AI: The Chief AI Financial Translator In an AI company disrupting a regulated industry, my job is to speak three languages fluently: what the technology can actually do, what regulators and capital markets need to hear, and what customers are apprehensive about. That translation layer is where deals get done, and trust gets built. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Meghali Brahmbhatt Principal Program Manager at Oracle	From Contributor to Leader: Redefining Your Next Chapter Stepping into leadership is one of the most exciting—and disorienting—career shifts you can make. I’ve been through it myself, moving from being the person who delivered the work to the person responsible for guiding, enabling, and protecting a whole team. This session is a candid conversation about what that transition really feels like and how to navigate it with confidence and clarity. We’ll explore the mindset shift from “doing” to “leading,” how to set boundaries early, and how to lead with authority even before you feel it internally. Most importantly, we’ll talk about how to… read more
Debbie Munoz Trainer at Lone Star College-University Park	Close Your Adaptability Debt: Meta-skills for Rapid Reskilling Companies scaling with AI are drowning in Adaptability Debt, the staggering cost of obsolete skills and lagging organizational resilience. This session delivers the Closure Framework. Learn to implement foundational meta-skills for continuous employee relevance. Leave with the strategic plan to make your talent strategy debt-free. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Jasleen Bedi Software Engineer	From Prompt to Product: How Engineers Can Use AI as a System, Not a Shortcut Artificial intelligence is everywhere, from writing code to shaping portfolios, but using AI effectively requires more than good prompts. It requires engineering judgment. In this talk, I will share a practical, system-level perspective on using AI as a partner in building, rather than as a shortcut that replaces thinking. Drawing from real-world experiences across engineering, security, and mentoring, I will explore how AI fits into the journey from idea to product and where human decision-making will continue to matter most. I will discuss how to think about AI… read more
Aashita Jain Senior Privacy Analyst at Informatica by Salesforce	Beyond the Checklist: Integrating Privacy Threat Modeling into AI DPIAs As AI incidents surged 56.4% in 2024, organizations face a critical gap: translating abstract privacy risks into concrete mitigation strategies. High-level policies are no longer enough to satisfy the EU AI Act’s conformity assessments or the 1,000+ AI-related laws proposed globally in 2025 alone. This session bridges the theory-practice divide. We will explore how to integrate adversarial privacy threat modeling directly into Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and AI risk classification frameworks—turning compliance obligations into competitive advantage. Drawing on… read more
Liji Thomas Manager, Generative AI at H&R Block	Evaluation-Driven Development: Turning AI Demos into Real Products If you want to move POCs into production, they have to do more than impress. They have to work. Generative AI demos can feel powerful- fast, fluent, and full of potential. But capability alone doesn’t scale. Without measurement, prototypes stall, trust erodes, and systems never make it to production. The gap between a compelling demo and a reliable product is rarely the model. It’s the absence of evaluation. To build enterprise-grade AI, you have to measure what you build. This session introduces the Microsoft.Extensions.AI.Evaluation libraries,… read more
Jennifer Pestikas CEO at Brave Women at Work	Ten Tips to Advocate for Yourself and Get Paid What You're Worth As of 2025, women earn 83 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same job on average in the U.S. A 20-year old woman starting a full-time, year-round position in 2025 may lose $407,760 over a 40-year career compared to her male counterparts. By learning how to negotiate early and often, women can continue to fight to close the gap on compensation in the workplace. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
RINU ABRAHAM Director, Program Management at Visa	Turning Chaos into Predictability for a Program Manager In fast-moving organizations, programs often feel chaotic—shifting priorities, unclear ownership, and constant surprises. This talk explores how program managers create predictability without slowing teams down.In a chaotic payments environment, effective decision-making comes from clear ownership, fast access to the right data, right resources and predefined guardrails for risk, compliance, and cost. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Twisha Shah Brandenburg Senior Principal, Enterprise UX at Target	Design Is the Missing Operating System: Why AI, UX, and Digital Transformation Keep Breaking As organizations race to adopt AI, redesign customer experiences, and modernize their tech stacks, many are hitting the same wall: the technology works, but the experience doesn’t. This talk argues that the biggest failures in UX, CX, and AI transformation are not technical problems. They are design failures at the system level. Drawing from real-world experience inside complex, digital-first organizations, this session reframes design as the connective tissue that aligns people, processes, data, and technology. Attendees will learn how invisible work—handoffs,… read more
Dorian Stewart Author, Speaker & Career Readiness Strategist at Dorian Inspires, LLC	How NOT to Get Hired: The Career Mistakes Smart Women Still Make and How to Fix Them Despite talent, education, and ambition, many women in tech are unknowingly making career mistakes that cost them interviews, promotions, and leadership opportunities. This talk pulls back the curtain on the unspoken hiring expectations that resumes, interviews, and online profiles are silently judged by every day. Drawing from real-world hiring insights and her book How NOT to Get Hired, Dorian Stewart shares practical, eye-opening lessons on what employers actually look for, common missteps high-performing women make, and how to reposition experience with confidence and… read more
Zinet Kemal Senior Cloud Security Engineer \| Tedx Speaker \| Author \| Instructor	Journey of Career Reinvention: Discovering & Thriving in Cybersecurity This session shares my personal journey of transitioning into cybersecurity from a non-traditional background, navigating certifications, industry challenges, and personal growth along the way. Attendees will gain insights on how to reinvent their careers, overcome obstacles in male-dominated fields, and leverage their unique experiences to thrive in tech. I will also highlight practical strategies for continuous learning, networking, and leadership that helped me advance while advocating for online safety for children and families. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Kimberly Bailey VP of IT & CIO at Lemoyne-Owen College	A Seat in the C-Suite This will be a deep dive into the perspective of women in tech on leadership, advancement, and how AI is shaping the landscape of leadership. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Ifrah Waqar President - Product, Payments and Partnerships at Code Words	Why the Best Product Leaders are Secretly Master Project Managers "Product" sounds sexy because it’s about discovery, while "Project" sounds soft because it's about delivery. However, in my 15 years in Tech, I’ve seen that discovery without delivery is just a daydream, and delivery without discovery is just a treadmill. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Priya Nair Manager, Customer Support & Training at Emerson	Authenticity Is Advice for People Who Already Belong "Be yourself. Show up authentically. Let your work speak for itself." Sound familiar? It should. It's the advice almost every woman in tech has been given at some point — usually by someone who has never had to think twice about whether they belong in the room. Here's the truth nobody says out loud: authenticity is a privilege. And for a lot of us, it's advice that arrives before the access does. This talk is for women who are already doing the work — the ones carrying teams, solving the hard problems, delivering results — and still somehow not… read more
Kim Groshek Executive Decision Strategist for CEOs at Lifeful Habits	Beyond the C-Suite: Designing a Meaningful Second Act Without Losing Yourself Leaving the C-suite is rarely just a career move—it’s an identity shift. Many executives discover that while they’re no longer “on the org chart,” the pressure, pace, and patterns of leadership follow them long after the role ends. This session explores what comes after positional power—and how to design a next chapter rooted in clarity, contribution, and coherence rather than urgency or reinvention theatrics. Drawing from decades of work with senior leaders navigating exits, sabbaticals, and second acts, Kim Groshek introduces a grounded framework for translating experience… read more
Sowjanya Pandruju Cloud Application Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS)	Code to Combat: Deploying Self-Governing AI Agent Swarms at Scale Scaling autonomous AI agent systems from prototype to production presents significant architectural and operational challenges that organizations must overcome to realize the full potential of AI-driven automation. This presentation explores a comprehensive approach to building production-ready AI agent swarms using serverless cloud infrastructure, addressing key design principles including stateless agent architecture that enables horizontal scalability and fault tolerance. We examine the Model Context Protocol (MCP) as a secure communication framework that enables effective agent… read more
YOUSRA Magouri Director of Marketing Technology at RGA	Using AI Tools for Career Development & Job Search Artificial Intelligence is quickly becoming a powerful companion for career growth—and knowing how to use it well is now a competitive advantage. In this interactive session, participants will learn how to apply AI tools across the full career and job-search lifecycle: optimizing resumes and LinkedIn profiles, preparing for interviews, networking strategically, and clarifying career direction. The session will also explore how AI can help map career paths, identify skill gaps, and strengthen professional branding. Through live demonstrations and hands-on… read more
Alexis Macías AI Architect/ Senior Managing Data Scientist at IBM	The AI Work Women Do That No One Sees AI is often presented as a story of breakthrough models, cutting-edge algorithms, and rapid innovation. But in the real world, AI succeeds-or fails-because of work that rarely makes it into keynote slides. This talk shines a light on the invisible AI work women disproportionately do: translating business problems into technical reality, aligning stakeholders, designing governance, managing risk, and holding systems together when hype meets production. Drawing from real enterprise AI programs deployed at scale, this session reframes what it truly means to “build… read more
Brooke Skinner Ricketts CEO at Beyond Barriers	The Assessment Gap: Why Working Harder Isn't Working 73% of high performers get passed over for promotions despite excellent work. The reason isn't bias or bad luck—it's the Assessment Gap. While some professionals are evaluated on their potential, others are judged solely on their proof. This invisible disparity determines who advances and who plateaus, yet most people don't even know it exists. Brooke Skinner Ricketts spent two decades navigating this gap—from truck stops at 19 to the C-suite before 40—and now helps nearly 2,000 professionals close it. In this talk, she exposes the unwritten rules of career advancement and… read more