Kathy Pham

As AI development and adoption accelerates faster than anybody anticipated, leaders need top advisors to connect the dots between concepts, actual value creation and growth. Helping organizations across sectors turn AI ambition into action is renowned entrepreneur and tech executive Kathy Pham.

An internationally recognized, award-winning computer scientist, senior fellow and faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and vice president of artificial intelligence at Workday, Pham is a human-AI collaboration authority.

Building responsible technology and AI systems for more than 20 years, her engaging talks offer leaders frameworks for managing risk, creating tactical, human-centered upskilling initiatives and connecting the efforts of public and private institutions.

Reminding audiences why it’s important to fall in love with the problem, not the product, she enables firms to apply current technologies in effective ways, so they don’t get left behind in the AI revolution.

“Organizations can keep iterating in small ways and do all the things that made them successful in the past,” explains Pham, who teaches the Product Management and Society course at HKS. “But by not being on board with today’s new technology paradigm, they risk being wiped out by a competitor who is.”

Making Principled AI a Priority

With a focus on ethics and social responsibility, Pham’s research spotlights engineering culture and principled AI development. In her talks and advisory work, she draws on her experience co-founding the Ethical Tech Working Group at Harvard University.

“Leaders can understand the tenets of responsible AI from research and government regulations,” explains Pham, who was the inaugural executive director of the National AI Advisory Committee at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). “But the real work begins when the practices of responsible and ethical AI are actually brought into an organization and put into action.”

In addition to the FTC, Pham has held top leadership roles at Google, IBM, Harris Healthcare and as a founding product and engineering member of the United States Digital Service at the White House.

Through this extensive multi-sector experience, Pham’s unique ability to unpack the ecosystem of business, academia and government regulation empowers decision-makers to better navigate public-private partnerships at the intersection of commerce and policy.

Hiring and Upskilling in the New Era of AI

As novel AI tools that require workers to possess new expertise are rapidly released, Pham gives leaders a lens into the changing nature of work, enabling executives to create new hiring and upskilling initiatives.

She points out that the latest technologies don’t simply require workers to polish up on existing competencies, but to create new operational know-how for roles that didn’t previously exist.

“When it comes to AI upskilling, the challenge isn’t incremental improvement, it’s building wholly new capabilities,” explains Pham, a past fellow of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. “You’re not teaching someone to ride a horse faster – you’re teaching them how to drive a car.”

Especially relevant to HR leaders, she accessibly outlines the wide-ranging ways that organizational change brought on by emerging technologies will influence hiring and continuing education.

Pham guides organizations in strengthening human agency and purpose, while also developing the capabilities needed to compete, evolve and lead with today’s most consequential technologies.

Emboldened by the support to experiment and build something new, audiences leave Pham’s engagements inspired and optimistic about their roles in shaping the tech-heavy future of business, society and government.

Kathy Pham is the vice president of artificial intelligence at Workday, serves as a senior advisor at Mozilla, and is on the faculty at Harvard University where she co-founded the Ethical Tech Working Group. She has held leadership roles in product management, artificial intelligence, software engineering, data science and consulting across the private, non-profit and public sectors. Pham is also a Harvard Shorenstein Center senior fellow and adjunct faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she teaches Product Management and Society. 

Pham’s private sector leadership has spanned Fortune 500 tech companies, and she has served on the advisory boards of Blue Tulip Ventures, the Anita Borg Institute, the Georgia Tech College of Computing, the “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck” initiative, Civic Signals, Startups and Society, and FWD50. In 2024, she was presented Anitab.org’s highest honor, the ABIE Technical Leadership Award for leading or developing a product, process or innovation that made a notable impact on business or society.

Pham was the co-founder and co-lead of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge and founder of the Mozilla Builders incubator. She served as a fellow in ethics and governance of artificial intelligence at the MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, with a focus on artificial intelligence and communities. Pham was also a Civic Science Fellow at the Rita Allen Foundation. 

Pham completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Supelec (Metz, France).

Kathy Pham is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Group^®.