VOICE21 is a Wrap! 

Rebecca Nathenson

Director of Product Management, Google Assistant

Rebecca works as Director of Product Management at Google. She leads the Developer Platform for Google Assistant, working to ensure that the developer experience for Assistant is intuitive, fast, and fun. Prior to Google, Rebecca led compliance and Admin product management at Box. Rebecca has also led product at Jobvite, where her team delivered deeply-researched, smartly-designed products and features for Jobvite's Engage, Hire, and Onboard products. Prior to Jobvite, Rebecca worked at NetSuite, leading first Commerce then Infrastructure product management. She also has extensive experience in driving commercial and technology innovation through product management in consumer e-commerce and retail companies, including Shutterfly, eBay, Apple, and BizRate. Rebecca received her MBA from Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, and her BA in International Relations from Stanford University.

Jeff Blankenburg

Principal Technical Evangelist, Amazon Alexa

Jeff Blankenburg spent the early part of his career in digital advertising, building websites for Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Ford Motor Company, among others. He also spent 8 years at Microsoft, primarily as an evangelist for any new technology he could get his hands on. Today, he works on the Amazon Alexa team helping developers make Alexa even smarter. Jeff has also spoken at conferences all over the world, including London, Munich, Sydney, Tokyo, and New York, covering topics ranging from software development technologies to soft skill techniques. He also serves as an organizer for the Stir Trek conference.

Vijay Balasubramaniyan

Co-Founder/CEO, Pindrop

Vijay Balasubramaniyan is Co-Founder, CEO & CTO of Pindrop. He’s held various engineering and research roles with Google, Siemens, IBM Research and Intel.

Vijay holds patents in VoIP security and scalability and he frequently speaks on phone fraud threats at technical conferences, including RSA, Black Hat, FS-ISAC, CCS and ICDCS. Vijay earned a PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. His PhD thesis was on telecommunications security.

Diana Mingels

Head of NLG and NLU, Capital One Bank

Diana Mingels is an Artificial Intelligence leader focusing mainly on Conversational AI technology and strategy. Currently she is head of the NLG and NLU departments at Capital One Bank, spearheading the ML and AI efforts for Eno, Capital One’s Intelligent Assistant.

Diana has been involved in AI research and development for more than 14 years, throughout which she contributed extensively to various intelligent assistants that are leading the market today.

Diana holds a M.A. in Natural Language Processing and Human Language Technology from the University of Wolverhampton and Autonomous University of Barcelona, as well as a M.S. in Mathematical Linguistics from St. Petersburg State University.

Richard Stern

CEO, TuneIn

Richard Stern was appointed to Chief Executive Officer, TuneIn, in November 2020. Formerly, he held the position of Chief Product Officer for Audible. Stern is an experienced digital consumer product executive with more than 25 years of industry experience. Previously, Stern led Audible’s global product and design organizations as the company grew to become the leading subscription spoken word audio company. Before joining Audible, Stern served as Head of Global Media Products for Sony PlayStation, where he was responsible for PlayStation Originals, PlayStation Video, and PlayStation Music. Prior, he was Head of Product Management for Amazon Studios, the company’s award-winning original TV and film development arm. Stern is also a founder in Four Daughters Entertainment, a mission-driven film and television production company devoted to inclusion and diversity in the media industry.

Andrea Huels

Head of AI, North America, Lenovo

Andrea leads Lenovo’s Enterprise AI business in North America. A global go-to-market executive with expertise in analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, Andrea advises global F500 companies on how to drive agility and re-invent their operations with AI. Her passion for evangelizing AI solutions inspires senior executives in Retail, QSR, Logistics, and Manufacturing to think differently about how they can leverage artificial intelligence to make smarter decisions, increase visibility, and enhance customer experience. A deep understanding of digital technologies, such as AI/ML, Edge, and Cloud-based computing, combined with her background in building vertical solutions with ISVs and partners, enables Andrea to become a trusted advisor to CXOs.

Prior to Lenovo, Andrea served as Director of Business Development at Dematic, where she was instrumental in leveraging the technology ecosystem to support omni-channel and e-Commerce distribution strategies for retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. Andrea’s background includes two decades of global business development, strategy, and innovation leadership roles, where she’s continually looked to the future to transform, re-invent, and solve real business challenges with disruptive technology. Her diverse career has included domestic and global roles with GE, ExxonMobil, CRANE, Imerys, Omron, and General Mills.

Andrea earned a BSPA degree with distinction from Indiana University and holds a certificate from MIT Sloan specializing in AI & Business Strategy. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her four children and their English Mastiff, Penelope.

Otto Söderlund

CEO, Speechly

Technology enthusiast and digital tinkerer since a kid, Otto learned to program at the age of 10, ran a BBS (pre-internet website) and was part of the Finnish demoscene revolution. Otto started his studies focusing on Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence but was quickly drawn into the startup world.

After having done technical work for over a decade Otto pivoted his career to business, studied business strategy and started a career in management consulting advising large European companies on surviving digital disruption and transforming and modernizing their organizations. Soonafter Otto founded Magenta Advisory, which he grew to become one of the most successful digital management consultancy boutiques in the Nordics, subsequently sold to BearingPoint.

Today Otto is considered an experienced growth entrepreneur with a solid track record of building and growing international digital businesses, and recognized as a digital disruption and transformation expert and advisor. In addition to Speechly, Otto helps and invests in early stage startups leveraging AI technologies to disrupt industries.

Dominique Essig

VP of Conversational CommerceStore, No8, the incubation arm of Walmart

Dominique (who also goes by Dom) is a creative and passionate product and operations leader with more than 18 years of online experience both in North American and Global product management, customer experience and operations, and software development. She has led and managed the product management, UX design, engineering, data science, IT, analytics and insights, and customer service functions with revenue and cost directed responsibilities. Currently, Dom oversees the Conversational Commerce team for Walmart. In this role she is responsible for all parts of Walmarts conversational experiences including Voice and Text Commerce. Responsible for changing how people interact and shop with Walmart. She was previously the Chief Product Officer of Jetblack, a members-only shopping service that was the first portfolio company within Store Nº8, the incubation arm of Walmart. She joined Walmart through their acquisition of Bonobos where she was the Chief Experience Officer. Prior to that she was VP of product and user experience at Gilt Group, and spent 12 years leading product teams at Travelocity. Dominique graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Duke University where she also served as captain of their NCAA Women's Varsity Volleyball team. She currently lives in Larchmont, NY with her husband and two sons.

Joseph Price

Senior Product Manager, NPR

Joseph Price is a senior product manager for NPR, leading teams bringing NPR’s storytelling to voice and mobile platforms. Before NPR, he was a product manager at The Washington Post, managing their audio and video product portfolio. He has been building habit-friendly voice experiences for over five years including multiple news audio briefings and the first-to-market breaking news voice notifications.

Audrey Arbeeny

Founder/Executive Producer, Audiobrain

Emmy-Award Winning, globally recognized Sonic Branding and Original Composition/Experience Design for Toshiba, Whirlpool Corporation, Electronic Arts, KIA Motors Corp, Google, Vanguard, McDonalds and many more to include: Microsoft Xbox 360, NBC Olympics Broadcasts, New York Giants, The Last Gold (USA Swimming documentary film), Holland America Line, Microsoft, Major League Soccer, GlaxoSmithKline, and IBM.

Raghu Ravinutala

CEO and Co-Founder, Yellow.ai

Raghu Ravinutala is the CEO and Co-Founder of yellow.ai, a leading Conversational CX Automation Platform that brings together the best of AI and human intelligence, enabling enterprises across the globe to deliver real-time, on-demand unified customer experience.

Since its inception, Raghu and his team have successfully expanded yellow.ai’s presence across the U.S., SouthEast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America with 1000+ customers in 50+ countries.

The entrepreneurial bug had been conceded deep inside him for long before he co-founded yellow.ai in 2016, with a vision to make customer and enterprise interactions more effective and effortless.

Previously, Raghu worked for 16 years with leading tech companies such as Texas Instruments, and Broadcom across leadership roles in Engineering, Product Management and Business Development both in the Bay Area and India. He is also an elected member of the NASSCOM Executive Council 2021-23 and enjoys a game of squash every now and then.

Noelle Silver

OpenShift Cloud Services Specialist (AI/ML), Red Hat

Noelle Silver is a multi-award-winning technologist and entrepreneur who specializes in conversational AI and Voice Technology, Operationalizing Data Science and Cloud Native App Development in the hybrid cloud. She has led teams at NPR, Microsoft, and Amazon, and is the founder of AI Leadership Institute, where she is mentoring and coaching girls and young women to pursue a career in AI and emerging technology. She is an OpenShift Cloud Services Specialist (AI/ML) at Red Hat and she is passionate about Mindful Leadership, authentic personal branding, and the ethical and responsible use of technology. She was recently awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award for Artificial Intelligence as well as VentureBeat’s Women in AI Responsibility and Ethics award. She is an influencer in Voice and AI globally.