Judith Spitz, PH.D.

The future of work will be built on platforms that blur the boundaries between human-centered and machine-enabled work. These AI-native platforms will enable a powerful collaboration between people and machines and drive a radical increase human productivity – unlike anything we’ve seen in the last 40 years of investment in business transformation. But just as we had to learn how to deliver cloud-native and mobile-native apps in order to capture transformational value, the same is true about deploying AI into our businesses. Based on her tenure as a CIO at Verizon and Advisor to an AI company, Spitz discusses what it means to deliver AI-native business platforms in order to capture the promise of AI and the value proposition of digital transformation.

The longstanding promise of AI is finally becoming real. But just as algorithmically-based decision making becomes more pervasive there is ample evidence that these algorithms – which supposedly allow decisions that are free from ‘human bias’ – are in fact showing significant signs of bias themselves – racial bias, gender bias, socioeconomic bias and in some cases just poor decision making. Spitz is the founder of a nationwide initiative to propel more women and other underrepresented groups into tech and a former CIO at Verizon. She will share her insights about how we can continue to develop and deploy this technology while avoiding or at least detecting these issues and how diversity in tech many be our first line of defense against algorithmic bias.

Hardly a week goes by when there isn’t an article written about need for gender equality in tech. The situation is even worse for women in AI where the impact and evidence of gender inequity is not just in the workforce but in gender-based algorithmic bias which is both demonstrable and growing. One thing is clear: in spite of our efforts, the numbers are not moving fast enough. That’s why Dr. Judith Spitz, former CIO at Verizon, is leading a national initiative called Break Through Tech to propel more women into tech. Join Dr. Spitz as she talks about her unique ecosystem approach to activate and align both the supply side and the demand side of the equation. Spitz talks about what’s working, what isn’t working and recommends specific and innovative steps that companies can take to move the needle on diversity and inclusion.

The ‘smartest guy in the room’ model of leadership may work in some environments but it is not necessarily the formula for success in the digital age. Sharing stories from her decades-long leadership journey from individual technical contributor to CIO for a Fortune 10 company, Dr. Spitz talks about how to be a rocket booster for the careers of those around you while at the same time propelling your own career forward and about women in tech finding their own leadership voices.

To be a leader – visionary, transformational, operational or any other kind – requires that you understand not only your own leadership style but also understand what your individual team is looking for in their leader and the unique demands of the digital age. As both an academic and practitioner, Dr. Judith Spitz learned from both theory and decades of practice as a senior executive and leader in technology. Drawing from her experience as a woman coming up the leadership ranks, she talks about how great leaders must understand all dimensions of the leadership challenge and then bring along the next generation of inclusive leaders for the digital age.