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B The Way Forward — Technology
B The Way Forward

B The Way Forward is an action-driven conversation about systemic change—how it happens, who drives it, and what it really takes to make an impact. Hosted by AnitaB.org CEO, and battle-tested leader in tech and equity, Brenda Darden-Wilkerson, the show gives listeners the tools they need to step off the sidelines and shape the future themselves.

B The Way Forward Season 2 kicked off with a central question: do you change the system from within, or do you have to break it to build something better?

Now, in our second half of the season we’ll celebrate something women often feel they can’t admit to in the tech world – failure.

Through candid conversations with leaders at the top of the tech industry the audience gets authentic, actionable advice that they can apply to their own careers.

Thoughtful, incisive and full of Brenda’s warmth and humor, B the Way Forward is human conversations in a digital world.

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At AnitaB.org, our mission is to enable and equip women technologists with the tools, resources, and knowledge they need to thrive. Through innovative programs and initiatives, we empower women to chart new paths, better prepared to lead, advance, and achieve equitable compensation. Because when women succeed, they uplift their communities and redefine success on their terms, both professionally and personally.

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Connect with AnitaB.org
Instagram – @anitab_org
Facebook – /anitab.0rg
LinkedIn – /anitab-org
And for more ways that you can be the way forward visit anitab.org

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Our guests contribute to this podcast in their personal capacity. The views expressed in this interview are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology or its employees (“AnitaB.org”). AnitaB.org is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of the information provided in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute legal or other professional advice or services.

Copyright: © Copyright, 2023 AnitaB.org

Latest Episodes:

Creativity in the Age of Machines | ft Shama Pagarkar Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

What happens when we stop asking what AI can do and start asking what it should do? Shama Pagarkar has spent more than two decades at the crossroads of technology, product, and people, culminating in leading AI transformation work at PayPal.

In this episode of B the Way Forward, Brenda sits down with Shama to talk about building products people actually need, why "AI isn't a strategy," and how PayPal's Maya initiative turned a weeks-long merchant integration into a few hours. Shama also makes the case that as answers get cheaper, human judgment becomes the whole job, and shares what she told her team when she asked them to trade old-school PRDs for hands-on prototypes.

If you're leading through change, building your career in tech, or wondering which human skills will matter most in the age of AI, this conversation is for you.

We Talked About

Why you should obsess over the customer and the problem, not your solution
What's truly different about generative AI, and why it can be "confidently wrong"
Good friction vs. bad friction in product design
Taste, judgment, and creativity as the human skills that grow in value as AI advances

Connect with Shama on LinkedIn

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:55 Meet Shama Pagarkar of PayPal

02:55 Early Career Lessons: Be Brave and Try Hard Things

05:10 Entrepreneur vs. Product Leader

06:15 Focus on the Problem, Not Your Solution

09:05 What Makes an Idea Worth Pursuing

10:10 Strategy vs. Iteration

11:05 What Failure Teaches You

12:30 What Makes Generative AI Different

14:50 What Companies Get Wrong About AI

18:00 PayPal's Maya: Making the Complex Simple

19:40 Good Friction vs. Bad Friction

21:00 How AI Changes the Human at Work

23:30 Taste, Judgment, and Creativity

25:30 What We Should Be Teaching Young People

26:55 Skills That Will Seem Outdated in 10 Years

28:25 Leading Through Uncertainty

31:10 An Uncomfortable Truth for Young Professionals

32:15 What Future Are We Building?

34:40 What "B the Way Forward" Means to Shama

36:20 Closing Thoughts

#BTheWayForward #AnitaB #WomenInTech #AILeadership #ProductManagement #GenerativeAI #FutureOfWork #TechLeadership #PayPal #Innovation

Leading at Scale Without Losing Yourself ft Adam Cheyer Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

What happens when your imagination shows up decades before the technology does?

Adam Cheyer built his first version of Siri in 1993, before the web existed. He went on to co-found Siri and Viv Labs and was the first developer at Change.org. Now he’s saying something many people in tech won’t: 2025 was the year programming died.

Brenda talks with Adam about why boredom made him creative as a kid, and how cardboard became software. They also get into Doug Engelbart’s idea that people and tools have to change together. Adam explains why he thinks we’re in a “golden moment” with AI, and why the thing that scares him most isn’t machines taking over but people losing their sense of purpose.

If you’re excited about AI but uneasy about where it’s going, this one’s for you.

We Talked About:

Why boredom and “active vs. passive” time build creativity in kids and adults
How Adam built 50 versions of Siri over 15 years before the world was ready
What the AI hype of the 1980s can teach us about today’s boom
Why collective intelligence, or people deciding things together, may be the biggest opportunity after AI
Why Adam is calling for a global slowdown while humans are still in charge

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn

Chapters:

00:00 Cold open

01:05 Meet Adam Cheyer

03:00 Magic as storytelling

04:20 Boredom, cardboard and creativity

07:55 Active vs. passive time

10:20 Software as the new cardboard

12:15 "2025 was the year programming died"

15:20 Studying the human mind at Brandeis

21:30 Why AI favors generalists

26:20 Doug Engelbart and human-tool co-evolution

32:00 When imagination arrives before technology

34:30 The first Siri, built in 1993

37:55 AI in the 1980s: expert systems in France

41:30 Augmented intelligence and collective intelligence

48:20 What technologists miss about human behavior

54:45 A golden moment for AI

56:30 The real risk: losing human purpose

58:00 Why the slowdown has to be global

1:02:00 Reasons for optimism 10 years out

1:04:50 Closing thoughts

#BTheWayForward #AdamCheyer #Siri #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #CollectiveIntelligence #WomenInTech #AnitaB

Imagination as a Tool for Change | Francesca Rossi on Intelligence, Ethics, and What Comes Next Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

What if the most important question in AI is not how intelligent we can make machines, but what we want that intelligence to do for us?

In this episode of B The Way Forward, Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with Francesca Rossi, IBM Fellow and IBM's Global Leader for Responsible AI and AI Governance at the T.J. Watson Research Center, for a conversation about AI ethics, AI governance, and the human decisions behind every system we build.

Francesca spent more than 20 years as a computer science professor advancing AI capability, before a year at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute changed the questions she was asking. She explains why AI ethics is really human ethics, why governance works like brakes and seat belts rather than a speed limit on innovation, and why the language fluency of large language models should never be confused with reasoning. She and Brenda dig into whose values get embedded in a model and who gets to fine tune them, what happens to democracy and the legal system when people can no longer tell what is true, and why the greatest threat to human agency may be the steady accumulation of small decisions we hand over without noticing.

This is a conversation that sits right at the center of this season's theme of presence, passion, and purpose, because the future of artificial intelligence is not something arriving on its own. It is something we are building, one choice at a time.

Connect with Francesca on LinkedIn

We Learned About:

Human agency as a measure of progress
Gaps in training data
How AI ethics is Human ethics
What AI is teaching us about ourselves

Chapters:

00:00 Just because we can build it, should we?

02:09 The bigger question behind 20 years of AI research

05:28 Leaving a tenured professorship for IBM

06:28 AI ethics is human ethics

10:45 Governance is the brakes, not the speed limit

12:19 What do we actually mean by intelligence?

15:13 Fluency is not reasoning

17:30 Why we anthropomorphize machines

21:36 What technologists miss about consequences

24:09 Business, government, research, and community in one room

29:15 Whose values get built into the model

32:44 The maieutic machine: AI that asks us questions

35:26 Serving humanity means expanding human agency

40:59 What gives Francesca hope

43:01 Deepfakes, jobs, and the risk of AI rejection

46:10 What AI is doing to how we learn

48:23 What working on AI taught her about humanity

#BTheWayForward #AnitaB #FrancescaRossi #AIEthics #ResponsibleAI #AIGovernance #IBM #ArtificialIntelligence #HumanAgency #TrustworthyAI #GenerativeAI #AgenticAI #TechLeadership #WomenInTech #WomenInAI #FutureOfWork #AIandSociety #EthicalTech

Building Change that Lasts by Designing for People | ft. Prasanna Gopalakrishnan Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Brenda is joined by Prasanna Gopalakrishnan, former Global Chief Product & AI Officer at ADP and a veteran executive with over 25 years of experience leading digital transformation across tech, banking, and media.

While much of today's conversation around Artificial Intelligence focuses on what machines will replace, Prasanna shifts the narrative toward a far more empowering question: What can AI make possible for human beings?

Prasanna also shares where her optimism lands ten years out, from democratized superintelligence to breakthroughs in mental health and drug discovery, and what still keeps her up at night. If you're a leader, product builder, or HR decision maker trying to bring people along through AI change instead of running them over with it, this episode is for you.

Connect with Prasanna on LinkedIn

We Learned About

Designing for People
The Human Advantage
Responsible AI & Trust
Leading Through Transformation

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome back to Be the Way Forward

01:51 Meet Prasanna Gopalakrishnan

02:06 When technology actually works for people

05:08 Three questions to ask before you build anything

07:00 Just because AI can, should it?

08:49 What stays true about people across every industry

12:11 Better at transformation, or just moving faster?

15:03 Customers want a kill switch, and that's okay

16:23 What she listens for when she walks into a company

19:34 How do you measure people when AI does the work?

21:28 The wrong question: what will AI replace?

26:18 Superintelligence in everyone's hands

28:30 The divide forming inside organizations

31:34 Sprint thinking in the middle of a marathon

35:36 The what, the how, and what actually gets rewarded

37:19 Work, roles, and tasks are not the same thing

44:43 Giving people room to figure it out

46:42 The moment leadership became a philosophy

50:19 The moral compass she never gave up

53:01 Straight talk and why women hear it differently

55:41 Ten years from now

58:42 What keeps her up at night

1:00:38 What being the way forward means

#BTheWayForward #AnitaB #WomenInTech #AIEthics #FutureOfWork #Leadership #ArtificialIntelligence #ProductManagement #DigitalTransformation #InclusiveLeadership

Leading From Lived Experience | ft. Vivienne Ming Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Machines can now write, create, diagnose disease, generate art, and carry on a conversation. Which raises a question bigger than technology itself: if machines can increasingly do what humans do, what makes us uniquely human?

In this episode of B The Way Forward, host Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with Dr. Vivienne Ming, a theoretical neuroscientist, serial entrepreneur, and one of the world's leading thinkers on artificial intelligence and human potential. She has built AI that improves healthcare, reduces bias in hiring, predicts mental health crises, and reunites orphaned refugees with their families. But the through line of her career isn't machines. It's people.

Brenda pushes on the hardest part: how any of this reaches policy, education, and the systems that keep flattening people into something simpler than they are. Dr. Ming's answer is characteristically unsentimental and characteristically hopeful: tension is the reality of a healthy world, all real problems are messy human problems, and the one thing you actually control is you.

Because meaningful innovation begins with internal alignment. Before we reshape industries or build remarkable technology, we decide what kind of people we want to become.

Connect with Vivienne on LinkedIn

We Learned About

1. Algorithmic bias is a mirror, and that's what makes it useful.

2. Credentials predict far less than we think

3. There is no such thing as a problem-solving skill.

4. The cyborg finding: our advantage is exploring the unknown.

5. Depth is engineerable, and so is a better AI.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome Back: What Makes Us Uniquely Human?

01:47 Meet Dr. Vivienne Ming

03:02 Sci-Fi Nerd to Neuroscientist: Where the Philosophy Began

05:18 Real Smiles, Fake Smiles, and the Tip of the Tongue

07:43 Why Algorithmic Bias Tells Us About Ourselves

08:21 Facial Analysis for Hiring: Absolutely Not

08:52 Intelligence Isn't Fixed

09:35 Two Scientists, an EdTech Company, and 2008 Venture Capital

10:33 Ending High-Stakes Testing with AI

12:59 Foundational Skills, Not "Soft" Skills

14:58 People Can Change — And It's Measurable

17:23 Zero-Sum, Positive-Sum, and Peer Role Models

18:08 When Systems Treat the Most Complex Thing as Fixed

19:42 It's an Ecosystem Problem

20:11 Productization, Not Science, Is the Problem

22:38 Why Politicians Are So Vile Online

23:07 The Human Trust and the French Pluralism Project

24:05 You Aren't Your Shallowest Self

25:31 Allostasis: Beware Anyone Selling a Simple Rule

26:31 Finding the Happy Tension

28:58 There Is No Such Thing as a Problem-Solving Skill

30:33 Everyone's a Mashup — And Everyone's Bad at Something

32:34 When Scale Becomes a Flattening Word

33:41 Flattening Produces Divergence, Not Sameness

34:41 Three Levers: Technology, People, and Policy

37:03 From Thirty Parameters to Eight Billion

37:32 When the Worst AI Beats the Best Human

38:28 The World's Slowest Copy-Paste Function

39:26 Meet the Cyborgs

41:24 Our Advantage Is Exploring the Unknown

42:23 Why Don't We Take Courses on Curiosity?

43:21 Socrates: The AI That Refuses to Answer

43:52 Hybrid Intelligence — and Why the Students Hated It

44:12 Getting This Into Education Policy

46:22 Thirty Years of AI and a Thirteenth Company

46:46 Refugee Reunification, Autism, and Repurposed Tech

49:30 Building AI That Leaves You Better

50:56 Don't Wait Until You Have Wrinkles

51:27 The World Gets Better When Old Men Plant Trees

53:52 Diverse Teams, Flat Hierarchies, and Reading People You Disagree With

56:49 Tension Is at the Heart of Everything

57:46 The One Thing You Control Is You

58:48 Character and the Building of a Citizenry

01:00:12 Kuala Lumpur: The Question She Read Completely Wrong

01:02:40 What She Hopes She's Remembered For

01:02:50 Closing Reflections

#BTheWayForward #AnitaB #VivienneMing #RobotProof #HumanPotential #AIandEducation #ResponsibleAI #FutureOfWork

Carrying the Weight and the Vision | ft. Shubhi Rao Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

We ask AI questions. We trust its recommendations. We increasingly let it shape decisions about our work, our health, our money, and our futures. But there's a question we don't ask nearly often enough: who taught AI what it knows and who was missing from the room while it learned?

In this episode of B The Way Forward, host Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with Shubhi Rao, founder and CEO of Uplevyl, and a leader who spent decades at the highest levels of global business (Ford, PwC, Tesco, and Alphabet) where she became the first woman and first person of color to serve as treasurer. From that vantage point, she saw a problem that never appeared on anyone's balance sheet: It wasn't only that women were underrepresented in the rooms where technology gets built. It was that the data powering artificial intelligence didn't really understand women's lives at all.

If you build with AI, fund it, govern it, or simply rely on it, this conversation will change what you ask of it. Because behind every algorithm is a series of human choices, and the most important question isn't what AI can do. It's “Who is AI being built to serve?”

Connect with Shubhi on LinkedIn

We Learned About:

1. Data is only half the equation; the algorithm is the other half.

2. Foundational models are remarkable, and they're the wrong tool for specialized guidance.

3. The internet is a skewed teacher, so Uplevyl built its own corpus.

4. A woman is not a homogeneous group and that's precisely the design problem

5. This isn't about replacing human advocates, entrepreneurship is a three-person job.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome Back: Who Taught AI What It Knows?

00:57 Meet Shubhi Rao: Ford, PwC, Tesco, and Alphabet

02:27 The Problem That Wasn't on Anyone's Balance Sheet

03:18 The Google Project Where the Data Wouldn't Come Clean

04:57 Why Who Builds AI Matters

05:28 Two Halves of the Equation: Data and the Algorithm

06:43 Why Workforce Representation Alone Isn't Enough

07:23 Foundational Models vs. Specialized Domain Models

09:28 The Missing Middle Layer

10:49 The Internet as AI's Largest Teacher

11:19 A Very Western Internet — and How to Rebuild It Cleanly

13:37 The Smithsonian, Women Artists, and Voices with No Webpage

14:20 From Blame to Responsibility: The Consequence of Defaults

15:16 What We Missed When ChatGPT Launched

16:18 Now Everyone Can Be a Builder

17:39 Grace Hopper and "We've Always Done It That Way"

18:08 Seeing the Problem — and Leaving Corporate to Solve It

19:01 A Problem Solver First, an Entrepreneur Second

21:01 What Uplevyl Actually Solves

22:26 Workplace Rights Across 23,000+ Jurisdictions

23:25 A Woman Is Not a Homogeneous Group

24:50 Widowhood, Advisors, and the Great Wealth Transfer

25:50 Trauma-Informed vs. Grief-Informed Algorithms

27:26 Why General Models Hallucinate on Lived Experience

28:40 Founding Uplevyl Before ChatGPT

29:28 Pattern Recognition as a Superpower

31:42 Why Build a First-Party Knowledge Base from Scratch

32:28 Uplevyl Studios and Hundreds of Women Experts

35:11 Craft and Care: Protecting the Algorithm

37:03 When People Questioned the Vision

41:11 Building Every Line — and Choosing Europe for Privacy

42:43 Entrepreneurship Is a Three-Person Job

45:07 Taking Your Fingers Out of the Cookie Jars

46:09 AI for Empowerment, Not Replacement

46:36 Financial Flows, Human Capital, and Unsolved Human Problems

49:21 Technology Should Reflect Our Priorities

50:21 What She Hopes We See in the Mirror in Five Years

51:48 Leadership in the Unknown Unknowns

54:17 Presence, Passion, and Purpose

55:04 The 10,000 Days Question

56:22 Closing Reflections

#BTheWayForward #AnitaB #ShubhiRao #Uplevyl #WomenInAI #AIBias #WomenInTech #ResponsibleAI

Success Doesn’t Mean Slowing Down | ft. Dr. Safiya Noble Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

For years, we were told that algorithms were neutral. Just math. Just code. Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble asked a different question, and it changed the way the world thinks about technology.

In this episode of B The Way Forward, host Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with the scholar, author, and educator whose groundbreaking book Algorithms of Oppression helped spark a global conversation about algorithmic bias years before most of us had the language for it. Dr. Noble takes us back to the beginning: a working-poor childhood full of questions about how the world really works, fifteen years inside corporate telecom, a front-row seat to the dot-com boom and bust, and a PhD earned at forty-one; proof that the timeline you were handed is not the only timeline available to you.

She also gets honest about the cost. About Black women stepping back from leadership because they turn around and find no one behind them. About the online violence pushing women and girls out of public life. And about why, right now, retreat is a luxury none of us can afford.

Connect with Safiya on Instagram

We Learned About

The search that exposed a system.
Code is a language — and languages are subjective.
Technology and humanity were separated by design.
There are now two education systems, and AI is deepening the divide.
Everyone has a lane, and everyone has leverage.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome Back: Presence, Passion, and Purpose

01:28 Meet Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble

02:17 Curiosity, a Working-Poor Childhood, and a PhD at 41

04:23 Corporate Tech, the Dot-Com Bust, and a Skeptic's Eye

08:00 Why We Ever Believed Technology Was Neutral

09:53 From Chat Rooms to Search Engines

12:45 Gen Z Doesn't Trust Search Anymore

13:44 The Search That Started It All

16:33 Designing the Study: What the Data Revealed

19:22 Algorithms Are Not "Just Math"

20:53 The Bifurcation of Technology and the Humanities

22:20 What If Women Had Held the Power and the Resources?

24:35 Eugenics, Race Science, and the History of CS

26:25 Techno-Solutionism and the Defunding of the Humanities

28:15 Sabbatical, Stand-Up Comedy, and Staying Present

30:03 The Cognitive Cost of AI Dependence

33:22 When Being Device-Free Becomes a Luxury

34:49 Who Gets Chatbots and Who Gets Teachers

37:23 Data Centers, Water Bills, and Community Pushback

40:58 "We Are the Optimists"

42:19 Tell the Truth

44:17 An Ecosystem of Truth-Tellers

47:16 Find Your Lane: Where Everyday People Have Power

49:51 Pensions, Portfolios, and Pro-Social Technology

51:53 Trained vs. Educated

54:02 Advice for the Exhausted Changemaker

56:08 Building "Data in Society" at UCLA

57:26 Gen Z and Values-Aligned Work

58:59 Black Women, Leadership, and the Cost of Retreat

01:02:31 Closing Reflections

#BTheWayForward #AnitaB #SafiyaNoble #AlgorithmsOfOppression #AlgorithmicBias #WomenInTech #ResponsibleAI #TechEquity

Beyond the Title: Why the Future Belongs to People Who Dare to Build It | Betsy Ziegler Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

What does it really mean to lead with purpose in a world that rewards speed over intention?

In this episode of B the Way Forward, host Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with Betsy Ziegler, CEO of 1871, one of the nation's premier startup incubators and innovation hubs in Chicago. From her early days at McKinsey and GE to leading innovation at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and now championing thousands of founders through 1871, Betsy has built a career defined not by a linear plan, but by a learner's mindset, radical authenticity, and an unwavering commitment to expanding what people believe is possible for themselves.

Brenda and Betsy dig into what it takes to lead through ambiguity, how to stay grounded in your identity when your title becomes your identity, and why the future will be shaped by whoever has the courage to grab the pen. This is a conversation about redefining leadership, reimagining success, and building something that lasts beyond yourself.

Connect with Betsy on Twitter (@betsyzeo) and LinkedIn

We Learned About

Staying present as a leader while operating in environments that are constantly looking ahead
Why non-linear career paths are the norm, not the exception, and why that's actually a competitive advantage
The "40 by 40" list framework Betsy used to reorient her life around living, not just achieving
How authentic leadership can cost you power in some rooms while building deep trust in others
The danger of defining your self-worth through your job title

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction & Season Theme

1:44 Welcome to B the Way Forward – Meet Betsy Ziegler

3:11 Betsy's Response: Partnership Between 1871 and AnitaB.org

4:02 Leading in the Present While Focused on What's Next

8:26 Was Your Career Path Linear? Betsy's Honest Answer

13:10 The "40 by 40" List That Changed Everything

16:08 Letting Go of Certainty to Step Into Something New

19:42 Trusting Yourself Through Major Career Reinventions

21:53 The Danger of Giving Too Much of Yourself Away

25:07 How Betsy Separates Urgency From Importance

29:56 Authenticity in Leadership: Where It Costs You and Where It Pays

37:16 What Really Motivates Founders (It's Not the Metrics)

43:24 A Founder Story That Shifted Betsy's View on Impact

46:00 What People Misunderstand About Failure

50:20 Advice for Anyone Struggling to Believe in Themselves Right Now

54:05 AI, Abundance, and Who's Grabbing the Pen

1:00:05 Closing Thoughts and Defining Integrity

#BTheWayForward #WomenInLeadership #StartupEcosystem #Leadership #Innovation1871 #AuthenticLeadership #AIandInnovation

Courage to Transform: AI Belongs to Leaders Who Build With Intention | Ambica Rajagopal Aug 25, 2026

Show notes

What does it actually take to lead AI transformation inside a global industrial enterprise, and do it with both technical rigor and radical humanity?

In this episode of B the Way Forward, host Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with Ambica Rajagopal, Group Chief Data and AI Officer at Michigan, where she leads enterprise-wide data strategy to optimize manufacturing, services, and industrial operations through advanced analytics and AI. Ambica has built her career transforming large-scale organizations across pharmaceuticals, energy, and manufacturing, and her through-line has never been the technology itself. It has always been the people.

In this conversation, Brenda and Ambica dig into what happens when the urgency of AI meets the human cost of change, why empathy is the most underrated technical skill, what a brutal performance review 15 years ago taught Ambica about the difference between expertise and leadership, and why she believes the most courageous thing a woman in tech can do right now is invest in her own resilience.

This is a conversation about clarity, transformation, and what it really means to make your path the evidence of the change you believe in.

Connect with Ambica on LinkedIn

We Learned About:

Why empathy, not speed, is the real foundation of successful enterprise AI deployment
The critical distinction between self-expression and authenticity, and why getting it wrong costs you influence in the room
Ambica's leadership mantra "Clarity wins the day" and what it actually looks like to apply it inside high-stakes, fast-moving organizations
How a 15-year-old performance review that said "your team doesn't like you much" became one of the most transformative moments of her career
The difference between being a journey person and a goal person, and why knowing which one you are changes everything about how you lead

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction & Season Theme

1:00 Meet Ambica Rajagopal, Group Chief Data and AI Officer

2:30 Why Empathy Is the Only Way to Get AI Transformation Right

5:30 Empathy as Active Common Ground, Not Passive Sympathy

7:00 What Has Remained Constant Across Industries: Clarity and People

10:00 How Ambica Stays Grounded When Performance Metrics Are Always On

11:00 Meditation, Mental Space, and the "Room of One's Own" Framework

13:30 Has Leading with Balance Ever Cost You Anything?

15:00 The Shift from Showing Up as an Expert to Showing Up as a Leader

17:30 Journey Person vs. Goal Person: How Ambica Defines Her Own Motivation

19:30 When Personal Transformation Gets Tested the Most

20:30 The Performance Review That Changed Everything

23:00 Vulnerability in Leadership and Why It Takes More Courage Than Being Right

24:30 Authenticity vs. Self-Expression: A Framework Worth Knowing

27:00 Who Is Most at Risk of Burnout in the AI Era

30:00 Advice for Early-Career Women in Data Science Who Are Already Exhausted

32:00 Building Resilience and Finding Your Sources of Courage

33:30 What Integrity in Leadership Actually Looks Like

34:30 "Make Your Path the Evidence of the Change You Believe In"

36:00 Closing Thoughts: People Always Come Before the Technology

#BTheWayForward #WomenInAI #AITransformation #EmpathyInLeadership #WomenInTech #DataAndAI #TechLeadership #CourageToTransform

Quantum, Equity, and Building What the Sector Keeps Avoiding | ft. Kate Waimey Timmerman Aug 18, 2026

Show notes

What does it look like to build a technology ecosystem from the ground up in a field most people can't yet name?

In this episode of B the Way Forward, host Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with Kate Waimey Timmerman, CEO of the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE), the Midwest's most powerful quantum information science and engineering consortium uniting universities, national labs, government agencies, and private industry.

Kate brings a rare combination to her role: a decade-plus background in neuroscience, a systems-builder's mindset, and an unapologetic commitment to making quantum one of the most accessible and inclusive sectors in emerging tech. Brenda and Kate dig into what it takes to lead across a non-traditional multi-institution ecosystem, why the growth mindset doesn't expire at graduation, how the South Side of Chicago became an unlikely anchor for quantum innovation, and what accountability actually looks like when you're building something the country has never built before.

This is a conversation about awareness, access, and the courage to build a future that doesn't just replicate the models of the past.

Connect with Kate on LinkedIn

We Learned About:

Why "awareness, awareness, awareness" is the foundational operating principle at CQE and in high-stakes scientific environments
How Kate transitioned from neuroscience to leading one of the country's premier quantum ecosystems and why that path is the point
What it really takes to lead across a multi-stakeholder ecosystem spanning universities, startups, national labs, and government
Why quantum technologies are far more accessible than people assume, and what the Midwest Quantum Workforce Strategy is doing to prove it
The Duality accelerator, the first quantum-focused startup accelerator in the United States, and how it was built for the globe, not just one institution

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction & Season Theme

1:00 Meet Kate Waimey Timmerman, CEO of Chicago Quantum Exchange

2:00 Staying Aware in Systems Optimized for Speed, Not Reflection

4:00 Leading Across a Multi-Institution Ecosystem

6:30 From Neuroscience to Quantum: What People Misunderstand

8:00 What People Outside the Field Need to Know About Quantum Now

11:00 Career Transitions and Identifying Your Transferable Skills

14:30 Risk, Growth Mindset, and Why Adulthood Is the Best Time to Develop It

17:30 Staying Grounded When You Lead at Scale

20:00 When the Science Is Ready but the System Is Not

22:00 Being First to Market: CQE and the Duality Accelerator

24:30 What Short-Term and Long-Term Success Looks Like for CQE

27:00 What Neuroscience Taught Kate About Leading Complex Systems

30:00 What Real Accountability Looks Like in an Emerging Tech Ecosystem

31:00 Why the South Side of Chicago Matters for Quantum's Future

32:30 Open Quantum Initiative and the Q Ready Program

35:00 How to Stay Aligned When Your Vision Is This Big

36:30 Closing Thoughts: Building Differently, Not Just Building Forward

#BTheWayForward #QuantumComputing #WomenInSTEM #ChicagoQuantumExchange #EmergingTech #InclusiveInnovation #TechLeadership

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