🤝 From Chief of Staff to Change Agent: Why the Skills Needed to Drive AI Adoption Look Different Than You Think

This fireside chat explores how professionals are moving from traditional Chief of Staff and program leadership roles into emerging AI Enablement functions across large organizations. Rather than treating AI enablement as a purely technical discipline, the conversation will examine how translating strategy into execution, driving adoption, influencing across teams, and navigating organizational change have become essential to realizing value from AI.

Attendees will hear how leaders can recognize emerging opportunities, create impact before formal roles exist, and help define new functions in rapidly evolving organizations.

Attendees will learn:

1. How to reframe traditionally “non-technical” experience as critical to AI adoption. Stakeholder management, change leadership, communication, and execution are increasingly central to successful AI programs. Attendees will learn how to position these existing strengths in an AI-focused environment.
2. How to build a role before an organization has named it. The conversation will explore what it means to work in an emerging function without an established playbook, reporting structure, or success metrics, and how to proactively define the scope and value of a new role.
3. How authenticity can support career reinvention. Attendees will hear a candid discussion about navigating nontraditional career paths, building sponsorship, and using authenticity to establish trust and credibility during periods of professional change.

Why this matters now

AI is creating new roles faster than many organizations can formally define them, and some of the people best positioned to fill those roles are already doing the connective-tissue work that helps organizations adapt to change.

The ability to drive adoption, align stakeholders, reduce friction, and translate complex concepts into action often exists outside traditional engineering roles, yet these capabilities are becoming increasingly important to successful AI initiatives.

For LGBTQ+ women in technology, this conversation offers a practical look at how to leverage existing strengths, advocate for emerging opportunities, and move into new areas of impact without waiting for a title, job description, or traditional career roadmap to appear first. At its core, the session addresses a question many professionals are asking now: How do you position yourself for the next generation of AI leadership roles using the skills and experience you already have?