Happy

Women Leaders of Conversational AI, Class of 2023, announced

Clap along, if you feel like a room without a roof

Clap along, if you feel like happiness is the truth

Clap along, if you know what happiness is to you

Clap along, if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

---

Back in 2014, hip-hop producer Pharrell Williams wrote Happy for his friend Cee Lo Green, and had him record the song to include on Pharrell’s upcoming album.

Unfortunately, Cee Lo Green’s record label executives vetoed the song’s release, believing it would subtract attention from Green’s own upcoming album.

Upset but unfazed by this idiotic slight toward him, Pharrell recorded a new version of the song himself, and simply released that instead.

“Happy” went on to become one of the singular most popular recorded songs in history, breaking every record one single song can break along the way and sending Pharrell’s career to new and rarified heights.

---

We are pleased to announce the Women Leaders of Conversational AI, Class of 2023: approximately 200 women who themselves have shown perseverance in their own careers as they’ve worked to impact the conversational AI / voice technology continuum.

These women leaders will be honored at the Project Voice Women’s Summit, taking place in April the day before Project Voice 2023 begins in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Note that "conversational AI" as a term includes, as a subset, anything related to voice technology, which in turn includes anything related to audio. Meanwhile, the women selected span all roles, from CEO to sales/marketing to HR to operations to conversation design and everything in-between, reflecting the variance of the technology itself.

Each of these women will also be asked to identify another woman within their organization or company who they have mentored or otherwise professionally helped along the way, and we'll invite both of them to attend together.

The full list:

Duygu Altinok (Senior NLP Engineer, Deepgram)

Ciara Anderson (Senior Manager - Conversational AI Engineer, CVS Health)

Marie Angselius-Schonbeck (Chief Impact Officer and Chief Corporate Communications, Artificial Solutions)

Emilia Apostolova (Chief Technology Officer, Language AI)

Maddy Apple (CEO, Women in Voice)

Yuko Araki (Director of Product Management (Conversational AI, Voice), ServiceNow)

Audrey Arbeeny (CEO, Audiobrain)

Davar Ardalan (Executive Producer of Audio, National Geographic)

Maria Aretoulaki (Principal, Voice AI and Conversational AI, GlobalLogic)

Rachel Azafrani (Senior Program Manager, Responsible AI, Microsoft)

Joan Bajorek (Founder, Women in Voice)

Anusha Balakrishnan (Technical Staff, Inflection AI)

Joti Balani (Founder and Managing Director, Freshriver AI)

Sutapa Bansal (Director of Product Management, AI/ML, Palo Alto Networks)

Naomi Bendet (Director of UX and Design, Verbit AI)

Carla Bentabol (Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Babbly)

Emily Binder (CEO, WealthVoice)

Katy Boungard (Conversation Designer, Meta)

Daniela Braga (CEO, Defined AI)

Jamie Brandon (Machine Learning Engineer, NLP, Dictionary.com)

Caitlyn Brooksby (VP Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, Canary Speech)

Rachel Brown (Senior Customer Success Manager, 3CLogic)

Eve Bulloch (Principal Test Engineer, Voice + AI, BBC)

Tara Butler (Conversational AI Recruiter, TEKsystems)

Beatrice Casanova (Senior Director Product Management, Voice Platform and UC, Five9)

Kirti Chandel (Innovation Services, SparkleHaze)

Jyoti Chaturvedi (Head - Cisco Innovation Labs India, Cisco)

Nancy Chen (Lab Head, A*STAR)

Alice Chen (Manager - S&C Global Applied Intelligence, Solutions AI, Accenture)

Lili Cheng (Corporate Vice President, Microsoft)

Mai-Wah Cheung (CEO, Media Lab Group)

Kristine Chin (Vice President, Global CX and CSM, Twilio)

Brittany Christian (Partner and VP, Design, WillowTree)

Yi Chu (Senior Director, NLP, Workhuman)

Fong Wa Chung (Head of Venture Capital, Akuna Capital)

Casti Cimpian (SVP, Lead Senior Architect for Conversation Commerce, Bank of America)

Maaike Coppens (VP Design, OpenDialog AI)

Heidi Culbertson (Senior Business Development Manager, Amazon)

Deborah Dahl (Principal, Conversational Technologies; Advisory Board, Openstream.ai)

Meeta Dash (VP Product, Verta AI)

Diana Deibel (Chief Design Officer, Grand Studio)

Raluca Dewald (Conversational Designer, Cashew AI)

Lisa Dolan (Managing Director, Link Ventures)

Christy Doran (Analytical Linguist, Grammarly)

Molly Duggan (CEO, Molly Duggan Associates)

Chithra Durgam (Founder, Blue Check Skill)

Rebecca Elson (Creative Producer for Siri, Apple)

Rebecca Evanhoe (Visiting Assistant Professor, Pratt Institute)

Colleen Fahey (US Managing Director, Sixieme Son)

Lisa Falkson (Senior Conversation Designer, Amazon)

Hanlin Fang (VP of Product Management, AI-Powered Conversational Platform, ServiceNow)

Wende Frost (NLP Engineer, Sensentia)

Amrita Gandhi (AVP and Head Strategic Business, Callify AI)

Leslie Garcia-Amaya (Head of Ecosystem and Product Inclusion Partnerships, AI at Google, Google)

Kathryn Giudes (Managing Director, TalkVia)

Michele Goetz (Vice President / Principal Analyst, Forrester)

Rucha Gokhale (Senior Manager, Conversational AI Data Scientist, PwC)

Lauren Golembiewski (CEO, Voxable)

Melissa Gordon (CEO, Rasa)

Jessika Gouveia (Head of Design, Got It AI)

Kanu Gulati (Board of Directors, PolyAI)

Cathy Hackl (Founder and Chief Metaverse Officer, Journey)

Cindy Hamer (Director, Business Development, ReadSpeaker)

Tiarne Hawkins (AI Services Director, Welocalize)

Jennifer Heape (Chief Creative Officer, Vixen Labs)

Rebecca Heilweil (Reporter, Recode)

Jennifer Pinson Herring (Director, Digital/Technical Product Management - Digital Platform Experiences and Conversational AI, USAA)

Kate Hickman (Head of Global Communications, Cerence)

Kelly Hoffman (CEO, Vocalysd AI)

Andi Huels (Head of AI, North America, Lenovo)

Susan Hura (Chief Design Officer, Kore AI)

Heather Hurford (Engineering Operations Manager, SoundHound)

Carlie Idoine (VP Analyst, Chief of Research for Analytics, Data Science and AI, Gartner)

Marieke Iwema (VP of UX and Design, Oracle)

Heng Ji (Professor, UIC)

Delia Jones (Chief Operations Officer, Webio)

Srujana Kaddevarmuth (Senior Director, Data and Machine Learning Programs, Walmart)

Aishwarya Kamath (Team Lead - Conversation Design, Wysa)

Gila Kamhi (Chief AI Officer, Wireless and Connectivity, Intel)

Ali Karasic (Marketing Director, Parlance)

Henna Karna (GM, Global Industry Solutions - Insurance, Reinsurance, Risk Management, Google)

Malgorzata Kawczynska (Computational Linguist, Samsung R&D Institute)

Ekaterina Kochmar (Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Korbit AI)

Depika Koria (Global Product Lead - Voice AI, HSBC)

Martyna Kosciukiewicz (Dialog Designer, Quantiphi)

Yaa Kumah-Crystal (Assistant Professor Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University)

Monica Landers (CEO, StoryFit)

Caroline Laurenson (Creator, Kindspace)

Brenda Leong (Partner, BNH AI)

Adva Levin (Senior Conversation Designer, Google)

Julia Liberty (Senior Account Manager, AI Data Innovations)

Emily Lonetto (Growth Advisor, Voiceflow)

Jennifer Lovette (SVP Customer Success, Invoca)

Katherine Luna (Manager, Apple Knowledge Graph Analytics, Apple)

Kira Makagon (Chief Innovation Officer, RingCentral)

Neethu Mariam Joy (Senior AI Scientist, Uniphore)

Antonia Mays (Senior Director of Operational Excellence, OneReach AI)

Katie McMahon (President and COO, Native Voice)

Lisa Michaud (Product Director, Conversational AI, Interactions)

Carolina Milanesi (President, The Heart of Tech)

Allie Miller (AI Entrepreneur, Advisor, Investor)

Emily Miller (NLP Engineer, Techtonik AI)

Tanja Milojevic (Community Manager, Resemble AI)

Alex Misiaszek (SVP, Experience Design Director - NLU & Emerging Experiences, Truist)

Margaret Mitchell (Chief Ethics Scientist, Hugging Face)

Angelika Modawal (Senior Conversation Designer, Zoom)

Ashley Moons (Account Executive, DataForce/TransPerfect)

Arianna Mueller (CEO, Nonsense Language Learning)

Mira Murati (Chief Technology Officer, OpenAI)

Zoe Murphy (NYT Audio, New York Times)

Nikki Nahoum (Account Executive, HumanFirst)

Caroline Nelson (Director, Conversational Experience Design, North America, Nuance)

Jane Nemcova (Chief Operating Officer, Veuu)

Jean-leah Njoroge (Director - Conversational AI, Lowes)

Anna Norris (Senior Data Scientist, NLP, Newsela)

Laurie Orlov (Principal Analyst, Aging and Health Technology Watch)

Celene Osiecka (Senior Director, Conversation Design, [24]7 AI)

Olga Oskolkova (Senior Voice/AI Experience Architect, VUI Agency)

Allison Page (Founder / Chief Product Officer, SevenRooms)

Pooja Pai (Head of Delivery, Avaamo)

Shing Pan (VP Marketing and Business Development, Speech Morphing)

Allys Parsons (Conversational AI Recruiter, Techire AI)

Rupal Patel (VP of Voice and Accessibility, Veritone)

Nidhi Pathak (Senior Content Marketing Manager, Senseforth AI)

Leticia Patricio (Senior Technical Product Manager, Unity Technologies)

Cathy Pearl (Design Manager, Google Assistant, Google)

Megan Pecilunas (Senior Product Manager, Snap Finance)

Andreea Plesea (Co-Founder and Global VP, Chief Customer Success Officer, Druid AI)

Maria Poonawala (Senior Manager, Business Value Services, Moveworks)

Arati Prabhakar (Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP))

Shyamala Prayaga (Senior Software Product Manager, Conversational AI, NVIDIA)

Aggeliki Psimarnou (Chief Marketing Officer, Omilia)

Heena Purohit (Head of Product, IBM Corporate Accelerator, IBM)

Vandana Pv (Conversational AI Consultant, Titan Company Limited)

Shalini Raina (Senior Solutions Product Manager, Skit AI)

Nidhi Rajshree (Head of Conversational AI, Roku)

Archana Ramalingam (Senior Machine Learning Engineer, AMD)

Efrat Rapoport (Head of Salesforce Israel R&D, VP Product Management, Salesforce)

Surbhi Rathore (CEO, Symbl AI)

Carolyn Reed (Principal Voice Researcher, Comcast)

Mandy Reed (Global Head of Marketing, Creative Virtual)

Julia Reinspach (Senior Applied Scientist, Alexa Privacy, Amazon)

Neethu Renjith (Machine Learning Software Engineer, Gridspace)

Gina Riley (Vice President, UX and Conversation Design Lead, JP Morgan Chase)

Liyani Rodriguez (CEO, Raddle)

Yannell Rodriguez (Director of UX and Conversation Design, Walmart)

Leanne Rolston (Data Scientist - Voice AI Science Team, LivePerson)

Donna Romer (VP of Product, Spotify)

Jodie Ruby (VP Marketing, LXT)

Shweta Ruparel (Head of Engineering, VoicePlug)

Natalie Rutgers (VP of Product Growth, Deepgram)

Valeria Sandei (CEO, Almawave)

Maja Schaefer (CEO, Zowie)

Jane Polak Scowcroft (Conversational AI Data Strategy, NVIDIA)

Shirmattie Seenarine (Director, Communications & Technical Publications, Deltapath)

Vera Serdiukova (Senior AI Product Manager | Language AI/NLP, Salesforce)

Nava Shaked (Board of Directors, Onvego)

Julie Sheffield (Chief Technology Officer, Cobalt Speech)

Jessica Shieh (AI Strategist, OpenAI)

Heather Sigel (SVP, Corporate Strategy and Development, Applause)

Noelle Silver (Global Partner, AI and Analytics, IBM)

Jessica Simm (Marketing Manager, Datch)

Kristin Simonini (VP Product, Applause)

Anna Smirnova (Speech Scientist, Stenograph)

Lindsay Soergel (Chief Product and Customer Experience Officer, Kasisto)

Shelby Sparrow (Principal Conversation Designer, Verint)

Nandini Stocker (Senior Product Design Manager, Flipkart)

Tanya Sun (VP Operations, Papercup)

Sara Taheri (Vice President - Chief Product Owner, Contact Center and Robotics, Prudential)

Juliana Tarpey Hadad (Product Lead, Alexa Accessibility, Amazon)

Nithya Thadani (CEO, RAIN Agency)

Patricia Thaine (CEO, Private AI)

Mojdeh Toyserkani (Director, Product Management, Multicloud Digital, Genesys)

Sharon Troisi (VP of Marketing Programs and Demand Center, Amelia)

Estefania Tunon (Experience Design Project Leader, NTT Data)

Sripriya Venkatesan (Chief AI Architect, Capgemini)

Pooja Voladoddi (Senior Core Tech Engineer - Conversational AI, IBM)

Sara Weisweaver (Head of Ethics & Community, WellSaid Labs)

Susan Westwater (Strategy Director, Vixen Labs)

Katy Wigdahl (CEO, Speechmatics)

Kesha Williams (Senior Principal - AWS Cloud Residency, Slalom)

Feiyu Xu (Senior Vice President, Global Head of Artificial Intelligence, SAP)

Alya Yacoubi (Head of Zaion Lab AI, Zaion)

Angelina Yang (Head of Data Science AI / Machine Learning, Next Insurance)

Jenny Zacharias (Senior Manager - Product Management, athenahealth)

Jennifer Zhang (CEO, Wiz AI)

Linda Yamanoha Zwickl (Senior Manager, Global Product Marketing, Vonage Communications Platform, Vonage)

We’ll have much more to say about each one individually over the coming month, with profiles on one or more of these leaders being included in each newsletter from now through the end of the year. We’ll share why each one has been included in this high profile list.

The 2023 class spans every job function, from CEO to operations to sales/marketing to conversation design and beyond. Impact in this emergent space can come from anywhere and this group proves it.

This Women’s Summit along with naming a class of Women Leaders in Conversational AI will become an annual tradition. We’re excited it will be part of Project Voice Week in April.

---

---

---