Sessions: WomenTech Global Conference

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Session	Speaker	Share to Vote
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
Pilar Moreno Mena AIOps Product Manager for Managed Services at Thoughtworks	From UX to Shaping AI Operations: navigating a career shift in one year Moving from UX into driving AIOps strategy in just one year meant learning fast while consciously harvesting existing skills rather than starting from zero. This session reflects on how experience in understanding people, framing problems, and navigating ambiguity became assets in a new domain. It explores the realities of career change, from imposter syndrome to confidence building, and how reusing what you already know can accelerate growth and create impact when entering unfamiliar technical and strategic spaces. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Megan Murray Founder, Fractional CFO at ATX Women in Web3 & AI	From Bootcamp to Breakthrough: Emerging Women Founders in Tech & AI This panel highlights the journeys of women early-stage founders from the Femme Founder Bootcamp, a community-powered leadership and startup program. Rather than focusing on polished, late-stage success stories, we bring forward founders who are actively building, iterating, and learning in real time. Moderated by the founder of the Femme Founder Bootcamp, this session centers on how mentorship, community, and access to networks bolster women’s confidence and visibility in tech and AI - especially for founders who might otherwise lack platforms. Panelists will share practical lessons… read more
Urmila Patnaik Director, Solution Readiness at McDonalds	Key Insights from Rearchitecting McDonald’s Ordering Platform for 70+ Global Markets This session explores the development journey of a unified digital ordering platform designed to serve multiple McDonald’s markets. It delves into the key factors that influenced architectural decisions and the invaluable lessons learned throughout the process. While architectural patterns like microservices, horizontal scaling, and standardization are cornerstones of modern system design, they come with trade-offs and context-specific complexities that are often underestimated during building the system.Drawing from real-world deployment experiences, the session distills critical… read more
Keyuri Anand AI Product Lead at Clio	Human-Centered AI: Integrating UX, Governance, and Metrics into Your Roadmap Agentic AI is transforming products across industries, yet too often AI initiatives fail to deliver real value because they treat technology as the centerpiece rather than as a partner to humans. In this talk, we reframe AI product success around people, process, and measurable impact, beyond models and features. You’ll walk away with a practical playbook for embedding human-centered principles into every stage of the AI product lifecycle: from discovery and UX research through governance and metrics that drive better decision-making. We’ll explore how to balance innovation… read more
Deepika Prabhakara Senior Customer Solutions Manager at Amazon Web Services	Influence Without Authority: How to Lead When it's Not in Your Job Description In today's complex tech organizations, the most impactful leaders aren't always the ones with "Manager" or "Director" in their titles. As a Customer Solutions Manager leading enterprise-scale initiatives, I've learned that true leadership is about influence, not authority. A skill that can accelerate your career trajectory whether you're aspiring to your first leadership role or already leading at scale. This session will equip you with practical strategies to lead cross-functional teams, drive results through stakeholders who don't… read more
Richa Gandhi Senior Engineering Manager at Godaddy	Own Your Career in the AI Era As AI reshapes technical roles, the biggest career risk for women in tech isn’t being replaced — it’s becoming invisible. This talk delivers practical, actionable strategies to help women develop future-proof skills in the AI era and proactively avoid being sidelined by automation. Attendees will learn how to shift from execution-driven work to visible, high-impact leadership by sharpening judgment, strategic thinking, influence, and build a personal brand. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, this session shows how to use AI as a powerful ally to amplify impact and accelerate career growth.… read more
Monica Anderson Young, Ph.D. Head of Org Effectiveness at Allianz Technology of America	The Multi-Gen Spark on Innovation With four generational cohorts in today's workforce, strong collaboration and communication are more important than ever. This presentation covers not only what each generation brings to the knowledge economy but how to maximize those elements in large and small organizations. Did you like this session? Share to vote.
Melissa Grabiner Global Talent Acquisition Consultant at Grabco	From Job Seeker to Standout: How to Build Career Leverage on LinkedIn in an AI-Driven Market The tech industry is evolving rapidly, with AI-driven hiring, virtual interviews, and global competition shaping how opportunities are discovered. In this session, Melissa Grabiner—HR leader, talent advisor, and one of LinkedIn’s top creators—shows women in tech how to go from overlooked to standout candidates. Melissa shares how recruiters and AI systems evaluate candidates, common pitfalls that reduce career visibility, and practical strategies to: - Position expertise to attract opportunities proactively - Tell career stories that resonate with humans and algorithms… read more
Jenn Zmuda Chief Information Officer at UnitedHealthcare	AI and the C-Suite: Turning Intelligence into Impact AI is reshaping the way businesses operate, and the C-Suite is at the center of this transformation. In this fireside chat, Jenn Zmuda will share candid insights on how executive leaders can move beyond hype to harness AI as a strategic enabler. The conversation will explore practical ways to align AI initiatives with business goals, foster a culture of clarity and care, and lead responsibly in an era of rapid technological change. Expect real-world examples, lessons learned, and actionable ideas for driving impact through intelligence. Did you like this session? Share to vote. … read more
Shamindra Peiris Senior AI Product Manager at Visa	Generative AI for Fraud Analytics • This talk will discuss how to leverage generative AI techniques to enhance fraud detection models. Main challenge faced by Fraud Detection models is the class imbalance where legitimate transactions vastly outnumber fraudulent ones. • Creating synthetic data will accommodate robust testing and model training. Further, synthetic data allows testing to fine tune models in a risk-free environment complying to Data Governance while minimizing Data Privacy concerns. • Secondly, this talk will discuss how to incorporate generative AI into the machine learning strategy to introduce… read more
Kelsey Waldrop Executive Advisor & Leadership Strategist \| Founder at Potential On Point	Intentional Serendipity: How Courage Creates Opportunity A Strategic Path to the C-Suite Through Personal Brand, Network Leverage & Thought Leadership For women preparing to step into the C-suite or onto paid corporate boards, advancement is no longer defined by technical excellence alone. At the most senior levels of leadership—particularly in technology-driven enterprises—the difference between opportunity and stagnation is shaped by visibility, reputation, and leverage within strategic networks. Understanding how power, influence, and positioning actually operate at this level is essential to closing the persistent gap in… read more
Silvana Pimentel Chief AI Officer at AI Your Superpower	AI as a Business Operating System: From Strategy to Measurable ROI in 90 Days AI is no longer a “tools” conversation—it’s an operating model decision. Many organizations experiment with AI but struggle to produce measurable ROI because they lack structure, governance, and a clear execution roadmap. In this executive-focused session, Silvana Pimentel (Chief AI Officer & TEDx Speaker) shares a practical 90-day AI Operating System that helps leaders move from scattered experimentation to scalable business outcomes. You’ll learn how to identify the highest-ROI use cases, build an adoption-ready operating model, establish responsible AI guardrails, and… read more
Nicole Scheffler Global Partner Executive and Founder at Cisco Systems and Tech Diva Success	Programming Success with the DIVA Code For too long, we have been taught to equate success with productivity, status, and external validation-losing touch with what truly ignites our passion and fulfillment. In this talk, you will be introduced to an empowering framework to sync your mindset, body, and energy source for authentic impact. By using the DIVA Code-a four-part formula focusing on Divine Gifts, Inspiration, Vision, and Action-this talk will guide you to: -Recognize and honor your unique talents and inner spark -Harness your passion as the power source behind both your mindset ("… read more
Dimple Thakkar Founder & CEO- CoreQuantum LLC \| Ex-JPMorgan-Head of Data for AI	REAL reasons behind 80% AI Project failures - Playbook to beat the odds Despite billions invested in AI, nearly 80% of enterprise AI initiatives fail to reach production or deliver business value. The problem isn’t data, models, or compute. It’s leadership, operating models, incentives, and human systems. In this talk, I’ll reveal the hidden failure modes behind AI transformation — drawn from building large-scale personalization, customer servicing, and enterprise AI platforms inside global companies — and present a practical success framework that consistently turns AI pilots into measurable outcomes. This session will challenge common… read more
Shanthi Sivakumar Founder and AI Ethics Consultant at FairFrame AI Org	Designing for Intelligence Why High Performing AI Systems Still Fail Real People Most conversations about AI bias start in the wrong place. We argue about model accuracy and training data, while the real damage is already done much earlier in the data platform itself. After a decade designing and delivering enterprise and healthcare data systems, I have seen this pattern repeatedly. Systems that look intelligent at scale quietly fail the same users again and again. Not because the model is wrong, but because of everyday design decisions no one revisits. Which data arrives first. What gets aggregated away. Which workflows are optimized for speed instead of… read more
Madhangi Mahadevan Technical Program Manager at University of Illinois Chicago	From Chaos to Clarity: Designing AI-Powered Systems That Actually Work in the Real World AI is everywhere—but building AI systems that actually work in real organizations is still messy, political, and complex. In this talk, I share practical lessons from designing and implementing AI-powered and automated systems inside healthcare and enterprise environments, where constraints, compliance, and human behavior matter as much as the technology itself. Rather than focusing on hype or tools alone, this session breaks down how to translate AI ideas into usable systems: defining the right problem, designing workflows that humans trust, navigating… read more
Pragya Keshap Technical Lead / Architect	From Docs to Dialogue: Architecting AI Chatbots for Product Discovery on Google Cloud Most product documentation sits untouched — buried in PDFs, wikis, and portals that users never find. The real challenge is not writing better docs; it is turning them into a conversation. In this lightning talk, Pragya Keshap, Technical Architect and IEEE Senior Member, walks through the architecture of a product-aware AI chatbot built on Google Cloud — one that uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to ground every response in live product context rather than generic model knowledge. Drawing from enterprise API platform design and large-scale cloud-native systems, she… read more
Srilakshmi Bharadwaj Sr Software Engineer at Linkedin	Designing Systems That Scale: Real Lessons from Building Large Distributed Infrastructure Clean architectures look elegant in design documents. Real systems rarely behave that way. In this lightning talk, I will share practical lessons from building and operating large-scale distributed systems — from storage platforms to secure data infrastructure serving millions of users. I’ll cover: Why systems that perform well in controlled environments struggle in production How operational complexity grows faster than technical complexity The tradeoffs between speed, reliability, and compliance What engineers should consider when designing… read more