The Critical Role
of Voice in the
Ambient Future

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.

Karen Kaushansky

Senior Conversation Designer, Google

Karen Kaushansky is a Senior Conversation Designer at Google and started designing voice interfaces in 1996. She has spent 25 years designing experiences that are shaping our interactions with the world. Karen's work spans designing conversational interfaces, enterprise chatbots, smart clothing, natural interactions in mixed reality, and experiences for passengers and pedestrians with autonomous vehicles. She worked for Nuance, Tellme/Microsoft, Jawbone and Zoox and has consulted for companies pushing technology boundaries such as Magic Leap and LEGO. After many years in San Francisco, Karen now lives in Basel, Switzerland.

James Poulter

Co-Founder/CEO, Vixen Labs

James Poulter (most people know him as JP) is the CEO of Vixen Labs and founder of Voice2 the UK’s leading Voice and Conversational Ai Community and an Innovation and Marketing consultant specialising in voice technology, conversational AI and social media.

Previously as Head of The LEGO Group’s Emerging Platforms & Partnerships team as part of the Digital Consumer Engagement division, James Poulter is pursuing new technologies, platforms and partners to build digital consumer engagement with LEGO customers, shoppers and consumers on a global basis.

Beth Rudden

Distinguished Engineer & Offering Leader - AI at Scale/Trusted AI, IBM

Beth Rudden transforms people and companies through applied AI and empowerment with the ethical use of data. She leads large, geographically dispersed analytic and AI teams to develop cognitive solutions that deliver outcomes for IBM’s clients. Beth has received patents on solutions that provide more precise insights, better customer understanding, and faster implementation. Her anthropology, language, and data science background also help her develop models to transform the human experience.