Dr. Manish Mehta

AI Enterprise Vision

Over 20 years experience guiding successful large-scale deployments of AI technologies including autonomous systems, robots, and virtual agents

Areas of expertise:

- Autonomous systems - Led technology strategy for commercial mower company
- Intelligent agents - Pioneered virtual agents transforming customer service at multinational
  corporations
- Robotics - Oversaw robot deployments in manufacturing facilities
- Voice assistants - Built AI-powered assistants for construction workers
- Healthcare robots - Advised Tech startup developing robotic companions to assist seniors with medication
- AI Strategy and Cultural transformation

I offer organizations:

- Identifying clear AI objectives aligned to business goals
- Assembling cross-functional teams combining AI, business, and domain expertise
- Guiding pragmatic AI implementations focused on improving efficiency, safety, and customer
   experience
- Advising on ethical, responsible AI adoption strategies
- Leveraging experience deploying AI solutions across industries from healthcare to manufacturing

Let's connect to make your organization's AI vision an operational reality!

Chief AI Strategist: Driving Pragmatic AI Implementations

Creator AI Studio

With over 20 years as an AI innovation pioneer, I create imaginative AI experiences by taking early stage technologies from concept to implementation.

My expertise includes:

a. Conversational AI - Created interactive museum exhibits and theme park characters
b. Robotics - Developed robotic assistants and experiences like Turtle Talk AI system
c. Intuitive Creation Tools - Enabled non-programmers to build AI behaviors through easy interfaces
d. Immersive Experience Design - Architected AI gaming blending conversation and immersion

I offer:

- Innovation Strategy: Guided projects from research to requirements to design like Pirates of the
  Caribbean ride reimagining
- Team Assembly: Brought together cross-functional talent to develop experiences like robot 
   companions for seniors
- User-Focused Development: Conducted ongoing testing and feedback with users during creation of 
   museum exhibits
- Entrepreneurial Leadership: Scaled innovations from prototype to full deployment such as the AI 
   gaming experience

My passion is pioneering experiences that fascinate and inspire audiences by leveraging AI and emerging tech.

If you seek a leader who thrives on the frontier turning early stage technologies into imaginative implementations, let's make the extraordinary happen together!

Chief AI Creator: Transforming Emerging Tech into Engaging AI Experiences

Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.

Employee Number 1 at the CTO office and Help Build the company’s first-ever CTO Office. Help Lead Innovation Ecosystem to $1.2B/yr revenue. 3 Years FastCo and AII “Most Innovative” Company

- Developing multi-year research, technology and commercialization strategies across emerging areas 
   like AI, IoT, Industry 4.0, robotics and autonomous systems.

- Building partnerships between business units (Security, Healthcare, Industrial, Consumer) and functions
   (Sales, Marketing, IT, R&D).

- Managing cross-functional teams of 50-150 people on strategic projects.

- Conducting M&A technical due diligence, competitive intelligence, quantitative and qualitative studies.

- Establishing an external ecosystem network with VC firms, startups, and commercial companies across 
  the Bay Area and beyond, leading to successful partnerships and investments with 15+ organizations
  including Plug n Play, Baidu Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and more.
  
- Driving well-received technology strategy initiatives on AI, ML, IoT, and AI conversational tech for the
  CEO.

Technical Director of Innovation, Office of the CTO

AI+ Accelerator TechCode - US

AI+ accelerator at Techcode consists of startups that are focused on the application of artificial intelligence technologies: voice recognition, machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision and gesture control to all the different industry verticals, e.g. robotics, virtual reality/augmented reality, smart home, IoT, medical device and wearables.

Startup Mentor

Accenture Technology Labs

- Supported development of visionary "liquid workforce" transformation in 2012, enabling Accenture
   crowdsourcing initiative. Platform catalyzed 15K+ hours and mobilized 100K people.

- Liquid workforce became a smash hit theme of Accenture Vision 2016, igniting 14K+ social media 
   mentions, 230+ client downloads, 112M reach. Amplified by 638 influencers like IBM and futurist Gerd
   Leonhard.

- Led research, strategy, and UX design to build Accenture's crowdsourcing capability across business areas. 

- Defined go-to-market strategy. Reported progress to leadership.

- Led patented design of new crowdsourcing offering curating on-demand teams. Transformed CIO recruiting
   and teams.

- Guided pilots analyzing coordination challenges with internal and external crowd workers. Led prototype
  development.

- Advised crowdtesting vendor pilots (Applause, Passbrain). Guided analysis for product insights. Managed 
   tools for new crowdtesting capability. Led pilots at top clients.

- Shaped design and guided development of a platform to enrich unstructured data via paid/free crowd work  
   and automation. Led vendor pilots.

- Drove multiple patented ideas advancing intellectual property. Filed inventions.

- Forged partnerships with vendors, R&D, and academia.

- Spearheading innovation blitz for Industry X.0 across 5 labs, reimagining products with emerging tech like AI
  and robotics.

- Pioneering human-robot innovation teams to conceptualize, design, manufacture and service products. 

-  Created behavior design strategies to motivate user participation for Fortune 100 clients. Recognized by  
   client with top award.

The Human-Centered AI Innovator - Unlocking Human Needs through UX and AI

American Cancer Society

Providing advice, leadership and direction to American Cancer Society to further the Society’s progress by leveraging the skills and talents of volunteers to add value to and complete strategic initiatives and projects.  The role involves advising the society to increase its appeal and competitive advantage in the volunteer marketplace, save the Society time and money on project initiatives, and offer opportunities to further develop staff and volunteers.

The goal of the program is to redefine volunteer opportunities to include Skills-Based Volunteering (SBV) to increase the society's market relevance and competitive advantage. The SBV program supports both SBV and episodic volunteers and meets the outcomes of the Board accepted recommendation. The purpose of the Society’s Skills-Based Volunteer(SBV) Advisory Team is to provide advice, consultation, leadership and direction to the Society’s strategy on Skills-Based Volunteerism.  The team is charged with developing a long term, enterprise-wide rollout for Skills-Based Volunteers.

Strategic Advisor

Georgia Institute of Technology

- Pioneered trailblazing augmented reality app - deployed and delighted hundreds of diverse users including actors, virtual world members, and non-programmers.

- Architected award-winning UX design thrilling 150+ visitors with innovative augmented reality gaming experience at UCI Beall Center. Transported players into resolving virtual character conflicts.

- Spearheaded software architecture and pioneering Wizard UIs controlling one-of-a-kind experience. Conducted rigorous qualitative and quantitative evaluation.

- Pioneered first Web 2.0 app empowering non-programmers to create, modify and share game character AI behaviors. Developed advanced AI dynamically enhancing user-generated AI.

- Deployed live and piloted by hundreds of user groups: actors from School of Theatre at Illinois State University, non-programmers from virtual world Second Life and Non-Programmers.

- Led extensive user research and crafted detailed personas. Spearheaded iterative prototyping of breakthrough end-user authoring tool and AI approach.

- Rigorously and holistically evaluated pioneering experience through qualitative and quantitative UX research methods. Dove deep into extensive data gathering and analysis.

Next-Gen AI Experience Designer

Disney Research

Transforming Turtle Talk Character Experiences

- Pioneering innovative system enabling multiple operators to engage AI characters, slashing costs.
- Uncovering guest needs and motivations through insightful operator interviews and observations at Disney Land.
- Rigorously evaluating developed system through extensive usability studies with operators and guests.

Reimagining Pirates of the Caribbean Guest Experience

- Energizing Pirates experience through vigorous ideation and prototypes.
- Accelerating cutting-edge Pirates research, assembling university and industry teams.

Theme Park Experience Innovator - Infusing UX with AI

University of Southern Denmark

- Pioneered Museum Exhibit Advancing State-of-the-Art in Conversational AI - Enabled first-of-its-kind 
speech interaction between children and AI-controlled Hans Christian Andersen.

- Led insights-driven Wizard of Oz studies, observations, and interviews to deeply understand young participants. Crafted detailed user personas and storyboards bringing exhibit vision to life.

- Spearheaded iterative wireframing, mockups, and development of breathtaking final exhibit. Published top-tier peer-reviewed papers.

- Conducted rigorous qualitative and quantitative evaluation uncovering actionable insights to shape future roadmap. Translated findings into pioneering recommendations.

- Developed cutting-edge advances in speech recognition, NLU, dialog management, and gestural coordination—unlocking seamless speech-based interaction.

- Exhibit captivated audiences and received extensive press for pushing scientific and engineering boundaries. Addressed key challenges to inspire future innovation

Pioneer of First-of-its-Kind AI Experiences

Steria

Software programmar

Reimagined Disney Attractions with AI | Pioneered Conversational AI Museum Exhibits | Self-Driving Car Degree | Corporate AI & Robotics Deployment & Strategies | Speaking Human, AI & Business over two decades

I speak human, business & AI and build AI solutions that nail all 3; learned and practiced over 20 years at the school of hard-knocks pioneering first-of-its-kind AI experiences including:

- Next-gen AI powered system for Turtle Talk with Crush
- Reimagining Pirates of the Caribbean ride with AI based storytelling
- AI powered speaker for construction workers
- Cobots and mobile robots deployed at manufacturing plants
- Medication compliance robot companion at senior living facilities
- Conversational AI powered museum exhibit at Hans Christian Andersen Museum
- AI powered immersive conversation gaming experience at UCI Beall Center Musuem
- Self-driving car development at Udacity
- Autonomous mower technology strategy
- Conversational agents for customer service 
- AI strategy and cultural transformation at large multinationals
- AI powered technology enabling non-programmers to create, modify and share game character AI 
  behaviors


Industries Covered: Manufacturing, Security, Healthcare, Entertainment, Creator Economy

Technologies Covered: Self-Driving Cars, Robotics, Human-Centered AI, Conversational AI, Crowdsourcing, Industry4.0

Work presented at White House and featured in USA Today, MSNBC, Washington Post, Computer Technology, InformationWeek, Bloomberg, Venture Beat and Business Wire

Partnering with me, you gain:

•      A human-centered designer - translating user insights into exceptional experiences
•	A business strategist - providing diligence to steer initiatives, quantify ROI, and minimize risks
•	An AI/ML expert - architecting, deploying and optimizing systems from prototype to production
•	20+ years experience spearheading innovations from concept to commercialization
•	Investments analysis quantifying technical feasibility and commercial viability
•	A technology pioneer - adopting emerging capabilities like robotics and autonomy
•	Cross-functional leadership uniting diverse teams to deliver complex initiatives
•	Trend tracking identifying high-potential focus areas to capitalize on

I would enjoy grabbing a virtual coffee to explore how we can work together to bring AI innovations to life - the future is bright! Let's connect.

I advise and lead corporate governance and operations transformation programmes at large global firms.

My responsibilities include:
• Conducting comprehensive assessments of clients' status quo, challenges, needs, and goals.
• Developing strategic plans for improvement initiatives, aligning them with clients' vision and priorities.
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders at various levels of seniority.
• Managing ongoing corporate governance and transparency programmes to provide mechanisms for accountability and business performance improvement.
• Managing business operations units that provide integration between various back office operations and improve their efficiency.

Key Achievements:
•  Identified and mitigated a client’s legal risks from using an expensive core system outside its licensed purpose, advising senior management to replace offending processes and addressing conduct issues of personnel who had extended and covered up the unlicensed use.
•  Diagnosed and resolved severe faults in labour tracking processes that caused millions of dollars in cost misallocation and productivity measurement errors. Identified critical dependencies that had been eliminated in organisational restructures and caused erroneous data to cascade. Recommended alternatives for replacing the lost dependencies or overhauling the orphaned processes. Advised on how to estimate the existing data discrepancies.
• Identified and addressed significant productivity gaps, duplication and operational inefficiencies, including synergies available by eliminating duplication within project delivery teams and productivity improvements from more effective resource allocation. Steered the client towards a comprehensive reorganisation plan to improve operational effectiveness and deliver substantial cost savings.

Governance Director

Telstra

I led a governance and financial management framework in a division responsible for over $300m in annual costs, building and running multiple asset portfolios worth over $1bn.

Responsibilities included:
• Developing and implementing a financial management framework that increased transparency, accountability, and efficiency of IT spending and budgeting.
• Establishing and enforcing IT governance policies and standards that ensured compliance with company policies, strategy and best practices.
• Optimising IT productivity using data-driven methodologies to identify and resolve issues and gaps.
• Providing financial and management accounting support and advice to IT leaders and stakeholders, facilitating better informed planning and decision making.
• Driving a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within the team, fostering collaboration, learning, and feedback.

Key Achievements:
• Anticipated and resolved challenges in the initial phase of a major transformation programme involving offshore delivery, pro-actively calling out previously unknown dependencies and potential roadblocks, and engaging extensively with GMs and programme managers to find effective solutions with acceptable risk levels.
• Identified process inefficiency and ineffective allocation strategies, delivering significant improvements through automation of reporting and allocation functions, eliminating redundant processes and taking advantage of synergies to improve productivity.
• Improved Telstra’s negotiating position by consolidating governance of vendor relationships, enabling purchasing relationships to be managed and negotiated at a business unit level, rather than an individual project level.

Senior Manager, IT Finance and Governance

I led a small team of consultants supporting IT purchasing management functions for Telstra, ensuring optimal value and performance from IT vendors and suppliers.

My responsibilities included:
• Conducting market research and analysis to identify and evaluate IT vendors and suppliers.
• Preparing and issuing requests for quotations and purchase orders for IT services, in accordance with Telstra’s procurement policies and procedures.
• Negotiating and finalising statements of work with vendors and suppliers, ensuring compliance with Telstra’s commercial requirements and standards.
• Managing and monitoring agreements throughout their lifecycle, ensuring timely delivery, performance, and payment of IT services.
• Resolving any issues or disputes that arise between Telstra and IT vendors and suppliers, escalating them as needed.
• Reporting and presenting on IT agreement management activities and outcomes, providing insights and recommendations for improvement.

Key Achievements:
• Streamlined the calculation and processing of allocations, journals and accruals through automation and improved process efficiency, resulting in greater accuracy of information and reduction in processing times, improved capacity for storing and handling data, faster and better reporting capabilities, and improved relationships with key programme stakeholders.
• Improved the working relationship with key vendors by developing strong rapport, assisting with negotiating better prices and terms, and significantly reducing invoice disputes.
• Repaired a previously strained internal relationship with project analysts in Enterprise Services by improving transparency.
• Increased engagement and morale of team members by ensuring they understood how their work benefited the business, improving the effectiveness of the team’s contribution.

Commercial Lead, IT Procurement and Contract Management

I supported various clients in the manufacturing, retail, and distribution sectors with their logistics and supply chain needs.

My responsibilities for clients included:
• Coordinating and executing logistics and supply chain activities, such as purchasing, transportation, warehouse and distribution management, and inventory management.
• Ensuring compliance with logistics and supply chain policies, procedures, and regulations, such as safety, quality, and environmental standards.
• Monitoring performance, identifying and resolving issues and risks.
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders across the value chain, including suppliers, distributors, retailers, and customers.

As a business owner, I was also responsible for:
    • Risk management
    • Management accounting and business economics
    • Financial statements, business taxation, payroll, and withholding

Logistics and Supply Chain Specialist

Operational governance, transparency & accountability | HR, Finance, Procurement, IT | 20+ years solving corp challenges | Chief of Staff, Executive or Lead Advisor | Now available, permanent or contract, in UK & Ireland

I’m an experienced corporate governance and business operations leader who delivers operations transparency and governance for global firms, specialising in back office operations such as IT, finance, procurement, and HR.

I also advise on improvement initiatives to integrate these units better, which improves the experience for stakeholders.

I have a proven track record of delivering successful initiatives across international borders, and providing ongoing leadership. I lead entire improvement cycles – from discovery and advice to planning and delivery – and ensure that the solutions I provide are sustainable and scalable.

Some of my key achievements include:
• Developing and implementing a management accounting framework that increased transparency, accountability, and efficiency for an IT organisation responsible for over $300m in expenditure.
• Establishing and enforcing governance policies and standards that ensured compliance with company policies, strategies, and best practices. This impacted multiple asset portfolios valued at over $1bn.
• Optimising productivity and efficiency using data-driven tools and methodologies.
• Identifying and advising solutions for a range of IT, financial, and HR issues in a major corporate transformation programme at an FT Global 500 firm.
• Managing communication and building trust between departments with strained relationships.
• Offering the frank and fearless advice required for effective executive decision making.

I’m passionate about continuous improvement and innovation, and I’m always looking for new ways to add value. I drive a management culture that incentivises improvements in value and effectiveness. I also enjoy mentoring and coaching others, sharing my insights and best practices.

I am available for permanent executive or Chief of Staff opportunities and to lead consulting engagements in the UK, Ireland and EU/EEA. Location and travel are negotiable.

I am also available for offshore opportunities if travel requirements are reasonable, or if the position is remote.

If you’re looking for a trusted advisor who can improve your firm’s governance and transparency, or an executive focused on delivering a continuous improvement management culture that drives both value and results, reach out by DM.

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