Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council

Jason Juliano

Director of Digital Transformation, EisnerAmper Digital

Jason Juliano is a Director within EisnerAmper Digital with over 25 years’ experience as a technology and risk management executive. A results-driven technology leader, he executes cutting-edge solutions across digital, cloud, cybersecurity, intelligent automation, data management, and analytics. Jason drives high-impact client engagements from strategy through execution, working with leaders at the intersection of innovation, emerging technologies, operations, and organizational transformation.

Jason has held executive leadership roles with several Fortune 100 firms within various industries, including investment banking, financial services, insurance, and health care. Jason has been a member of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS/ISAC) and the Wall Street Technology Association. He has been IBM Champion since 2018 in IBM Cloud, Blockchain, Data and AI. He is recognized as a thought leader within the Microsoft, IBM, Google and AWS communities. He has been a speaker at many international conferences on AI, Digital Transformation and Cloud technologies.

Manoj Suvarna

Managing Director | AI Ecosystems, Deloitte New Venture Accelerator

Manoj Suvarna is a Managing Director for AI Ecosystems within the Technology Strategy & Partnerships team. In this role, he represents Deloitte’s AI practice in, identifying & executing ecosystem relationships with technology & data partners to support AI business growth initiatives.

Manoj started his career with Deloitte in April 2021. Prior to this he spent almost 24 years at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in a variety of leadership roles spanning Product Management, Sales GTM, P&L Management & Alliances Marketing.

Manoj holds an MBA in Marketing from University of Memphis and a BS in Production Engineering from University of Bombay. He also completed an Executive Course on AI at MIT. He serves as Chair of the AI Advisory Council @CompTIA and is based in Houston, TX.

Mechie Nkengla

CEO/Chief Data Strategist, Data Products LLC

Mechie Nkengla, Ph.D is the CEO and Chief Data Strategist at Data Products LLC. She was formerly a director at EY Analytics Center of Excellence and taught courses in the Master of Data Science programs at the University of Chicago. Dr Nkengla has a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Applied Mathematics as well as a master’s degree in Mathematical Computer Science. Her professional journey has taken her from Academic Research to Government to Start-ups to Fortune 500 Corporations and finally to founding Data Products which strives to improve lives through data. She is an excellent resource for insights on data and analytics strategy, data literacy, building a data driven organization, AI & ML for business optimization, and resource upskilling.

Phaedra Boinodiris

Consulting's global leader for Trustworthy AI, IBM

A fellow with the London-based Royal Society of Arts, Boinodiris has focused on inclusion in technology since 1999. She currently leads IBM Consulting’s Trustworthy AI Practice and serves on the leadership team of IBM’s Academy of Technology. Boinodiris is a co-founder of the Future World Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to curating K-12 education in AI ethics. She is pursuing her Ph.D. in AI and Ethics at University College Dublin’s Smart Lab. In 2019, she won the United Nations Woman of Influence in STEM and Inclusivity Award and was recognized by Women in Games International as one of the Top 100 Women in the Games Industry as she began one of the first scholarship programs in the United States for women to pursue degrees in game design and development.

Seth Dobrin

President, Responsible AI Institute

Widely recognized as one of the industry’s most preeminent leaders in AI, Dr. Seth Dobrin has ideated and spearheaded some of the most innovative AI strategies for a variety of Fortune 500 companies. Trained as a human-geneticist, he launched his career in tech with an unwavering passion for the rigor of the scientific method applied to business, combined with his interest in human nature described through data.

Dr. Dobrin is the CEO of Trustwise, the President of the Responsible AI Institute, and Founder of Qantm AI, a strategic advisory firm focused on bridging the business value of AI to its technical execution through a human-centered approach, providing tailored solutions to each client. He founded the business after creating and launching a new human-centered methodology for designing and executing an AI strategy. Dr. Dobrin’s proprietary methodology enables organizational transformation through a bespoke design-driven process that guides the prioritization and implementation of a well-defined set of AI initiatives that align with a company’s business strategy. Dr. Dobrin’s outcome-based strategy fundamentally transforms the elements of every company's functions, from business operations to product development, by driving optimal business results, consistently and responsibly.

As a thought leader, Dr. Dobrin’s unique combination of experience and high level of technical expertise has allowed him to carve out a niche space in the AI field. His human-centered approach to AI in business utilizes humans as a lens to frame data and AI issues, while simultaneously uncovering new business opportunities to design AI solutions around. Dr. Dobrin credits his emphasis on trust, fairness, and inclusiveness as being paramount to his success in AI. As advocate for ethical AI and inclusivity in tech, Dr. Dobrin’s thoughtful approach delivers comprehensive returns, helping each client achieve their unique goals.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Dr. Dobrin designed and led cutting edge technology strategy initiatives with IBM. Most recently, he was appointed as IBM's first-ever Global Chief AI Officer and led the entire corporate AI strategy. In this role, Dr. Dobrin was responsible for connecting the AI development and governance across IBM’s divisions with a systemic creation of business outcomes. Earlier, he also served as Vice President and Chief Data Officer for IBM Cloud & Cognitive Software, where he realized billions of dollars and cost savings for IBM and its clients by building a highly diverse team of data scientists and designing leading measurable technology, data, and AI strategies. Before joining IBM, Dr. Dobrin held a variety of leadership roles focused on data and digital strategy with Monsanto Company.

Christopher Hazard

CTO/Cofounder, Diveplane Corporation

Dr. Chris Hazard is co-founder and CTO of Diveplane. Diveplane’s understandable and privacy enhancing AI spun out of Hazardous Software, a company Chris founded in 2007 that focuses on decision support, visualization, and simulation for hard strategy problems in large organizations, DoD, and government. Chris holds a PhD in computer science from NC State, with focus on artificial intelligence for trust and reputation. He was a software architect of CDMA infrastructure at Motorola, worked on robot coordination and logistics at Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics), and advised NATO on cyber security policies. He has led simulation, serious gaming, and software projects related to cyber security, social engineering, logistics, economics, and psychology, and is a certified hypnotist. Dr. Hazard is also known for his 2011 game Achron, which won GameSpot’s Best Original Game Mechanic award, and for his research on AI/ML, privacy, game design, and human-computer interaction, for which he has given keynote speeches at major conferences and been featured in mainstream media.

Ashwin Jha

Senior Director of Engineering, NVIDIA

Ashwin Jha is Sr Director, Engineering at NVIDIA. In this capacity, Ashwin leads the engineering organization focused on solutions for scaling cloud infrastructure, Data, SRE, DevOps, Software Engineering, AI/ML & Security that powers the Engineering Productivity of NVIDIA. Before joining NVIDIA, Ashwin lead Engineering Organization at LinkedIn & Ingram Micro. Ashwin has over 15 years of experience and his expertise span from building and leading cross-functional engineering team, product management, scaling reliable, secure large scale cloud platforms & infrastructure. Ashwin has been key leader in bringing transformation to enterprises using AI by building scalable self service AI products that includes Enterprise Data & Data Science Platforms, Chatbot & Vision AI infrastructure & Security Platforms.

Karen Silverman

CEO/Founder, The Cantellus Group

Karen is a leading global expert in practical governance strategies for AI and other frontier technologies. As the CEO and Founder of The Cantellus Group, she advises Fortune 50 companies, startups, consortia, and the public sector on how to manage cutting-edge technologies in a rapidly changing policy environment. Her expertise is informed by more than 20 years of practice and management leadership at Latham & Watkins, LLP where she advised global businesses in complex antitrust matters, M&A, governance, ESG, and crisis management. Karen chairs the board of a public benefit corporation developing complex content moderation tools. She is a World Economic Forum Global Innovator and sits on its Global AI Council. She serves on the boards of AIEDU, Legal Momentum and Not For Sale.