Charlene Li Keynote Speaker & Strategic Advisor

Quantum Networks Group

Founder & CEO

100 Coaches Agency

100 Coaches brings together the world’s leading executive coaches, top business thinkers and best leaders with the common purpose to prepare, develop, and energize inspired leaders for the future.

100 Coaches was launched in 2016 by world-renowned educator and leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith as a network to learn and collaborate and ultimately ‘Pay It Forward.’ The agency specializes in connecting the world’s best coaches with top leaders that best fit their needs. 

As a certified Stakeholder-Centered Coach, I focus on supporting leaders through disruptive transformations and ensuring we establish clear success measures to track and report on our progress to your key stakeholders. I provide a money-back guarantee that we get results!

Executive Transformation Coach

LinkedIn

Named a LinkedIn Influencer when the program launched in 2012 and was named one of the LinkedIn Top Voices: Company Culture in April 2022 which highlights 10 must-follow thought leaders covering how to build great workplaces, develop talent and cultivate inclusive cultures.

LinkedIn Top Voices

Member of YPO San Francisco Gold and YPO Global One Chapters.

Member

Member of YPO San Francisco Gold and YPO Pacific One chapters. Served on the Pacific Regional Regional Executive Board, the Membership Committee of YPO Pacific One, and the YNG+ Taskforce.

Regional Executive Board, Pacific Region

PA Consulting

As the leader of our research group, I set the agenda for our thought leadership focused on cross-sector issues facing leaders. 

PA is the innovation and transformation consultancy that brought the home pregnancy test and the Sydney Opera House to life – alongside thousands of other ingenious solutions as every day and monumental. We believe in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future in a technology-driven world.

Chief Research Officer

Altimeter, a Prophet Company

I helped leaders thrive with disruption as a Senior Fellow at Altimeter which I founded and was acquired by Prophet in July 2015. 

I have written or co-authored six books, including "Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies"​, the New York Times bestseller, "Open Leadership"​, "The Engaged Leader", and my latest book, "The Disruption Mindset".

My current research includes leadership, digital strategy, employee experience, and creating growth and innovation cultures.

Founder & Senior Fellow

I helped leaders thrive with disruption, especially new technologies that impact their strategies and organizations. I did this through the research and consulting work we did at Altimeter Group, which I founded and where I was the CEO.

Jumpshot Inc

Served on the Jumpshot Board of Directors and the Audit Committee. I'd been following Jumpshot for over two years and joined the board because they provide deep insight into customer journeys while adhering to the strictest protocols around personally identifiable information (PII).

Board Member

Forrester Research

Research and analyze how media companies and marketers use technology to improve their business strategies and practices. Research topics include social technologies, searcn marketing, marketing mix, digital marketing growth, online recruitment and online classifieds, social networks, portals (like AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!), local media, especially newspapers.

Principal Analyst

Led the Media and Marketing research team, ranging from 7-10 analysts and research associates. Responsible for all research produced by the analysts, as well as liasons with the sales force.

Research Director

Industry analyst covering Internet advertising, online recruitment, online promotions, and portals. Also looked at newspaper publishing strategies.

Senior Analyst

Community Newspaper Company

Created the Internet publishing division of CNC. Wrote original business plan and obtained funding from Fidelity Investments, the parent company. Put 200 individual towns and cities online at www.townonline.com, which included 120 community and daily newspapers (total circulation 1+ million). Won two EPpy awards for best local site and best commercial product (for the online recruitment site). Also held positions on the Newspaper Association of America's online publishing advisory board.

Internet Publisher

I catalyze transformation as an expert on disruptive transformation strategy and leadership. I'm an entrepreneur and NY Times bestselling author and have seen business, society, and the world undergo seismic changes. My work includes writing books, speaking, advising, and coaching companies and their leaders and I've worked with 14 of the Dow Jones 30 companies. 

I help leaders and their organizations in three ways: 

1) Research, Writing, and Streaming: I share my research and thinking through books and articles. I stream weekly here on LinkedIn, usually Tuesday at 9 am PST. I research and develop strategies for disruptive innovation, leadership in challenging times, and the impact of generative AI on the future of work. I was named one of LinkedIn's Top 10 Voices on Company Culture in 2022. 

2) Speaking and Workshops: From conference keynotes to intimate executive gatherings, my speeches and workshops educate and identify specific actions people can take to start making the future a reality today. Peppered with relevant examples, I tailor the content for every audience. I love creating "a-ha" moments when the audience sees what is possible in the future and has the confidence to take the next step.  I specifically emphasize the importance of relationships, empathy, and wisdom in leadership and transformation. Partial client list and appearances include Adobe, Banfield, Cloudera, Coty, Genesys, KPMG, Novartis, Oracle, Providence Health, SAP, SxSW, TED, Tony Robbins, US Navy, Verizon, Workplace from Meta, World Business Forum, and the World Economic Forum.  

3) Advisory and coaching. I take on a few select advisory and coaching clients a year, typically on a retainer basis. My advisory work addresses specific transformation challenges facing an organization, from shifting strategic focus to driving culture change. In my coaching, I work with people who are already great leaders and support them in leading disruptive, transformative change using a stakeholder-centered coaching approach developed by Marshall Goldsmith. Clients have included: Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines,

Most leaders I talk to are confused about AI terminology.

They lump everything together as "AI" without understanding that different types solve different problems.

Here's what you actually need to know:

🔮 Predictive AI uses your data to forecast what's likely to happen. It's the most reliable because it's based on patterns in real data. Think: "Based on past trends, here's what we expect."

✨ Generative AI (like ChatGPT) creates new content by learning patterns from massive amounts of information. It's probabilistic—meaning it's making educated guesses. That's why it sometimes "hallucinates" (makes things up). It's not broken; it's designed to give you an answer even when uncertain.

🤖 Agentic AI is the newest frontier. These are AI agents that act on your behalf—booking meetings, managing workflows, completing tasks. They're like having a tireless assistant who never sleeps.

Treating all AI the same way is a common mistake.

You wouldn't use a hammer for every job in your toolbox. Same with AI.

Understanding these distinctions changes how you deploy AI in your organization—and it’s one of the first concepts Katia Walsh, Ph.D. and I teach leaders in our book “Winning With AI.” Check out the link in the comments!

#ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #TechEducation

Charlene Li

I help leaders drive disruptive business transformation and develop winning AI strategies

Your IT department just pitched you on building AI agents.

Do you know enough to say yes? Or no?

Most leaders I talk to feel caught between two extremes: vendor promises of "fully autonomous AI" that sounds too good to be true (spoiler: it is), and the fear that if they don't jump on the agent bandwagon, they'll fall hopelessly behind.

Neither is accurate.

In this week's #LeadingDisruption, I cut through the noise to show you where we actually are with agentic AI:

✅ The top reasons agents fail 
✅ Strategic questions CEOs should be asking 
✅ Why commercial platforms beat custom builds for your first agents
✅ Real examples of what's working today in insurance, healthcare, and banking 

The timeline for agentic AI is a decade, not a quarter. But the organizations building the right foundation now will have a massive advantage when the technology catches up.

The question isn't whether to use agents. It's whether you understand your organization well enough to deploy them successfully.

Read the full breakdown.

#AI #Leadership #AgenticAI

Everyone's focused on using AI for efficiency gains. Time saved. Tasks automated. ROI measured in productivity metrics.

But what if we're thinking about this completely wrong?

What if the real value of AI isn't making us more productive—it's making us more deeply human?

In today’s #LeadingDisruption, I'm exploring what my book co-author Katia Walsh, Ph.D. and I call "integrated intelligence"—combining AI's capabilities with the five qualities that make us uniquely human: empathy, self-reflection, intuition, judgment, and wisdom.

Here's the uncomfortable question: as AI frees up time by handling repetitive tasks, what will you do with those found hours? Schedule more meetings? Or finally create space for the strategic thinking, reflection, and human connection that actually drives breakthrough value?

The first companies to figure this out won't just have an efficiency advantage. They'll have a humanity advantage that's nearly impossible to replicate.

Gen Z isn't lazy. They're redefining ambition.

And if you don't understand this shift, you'll lose your best young talent.

Here's what they're actually rejecting:

❌ "Pay your dues" timelines 
❌ Titles over meaningful impact 
❌ The millennial burnout model of "having it all"
❌ Hierarchy-based respect over expertise-based leadership 
❌ Waiting 2-3 years for advancement when they're learning daily 

What they want instead:

✅ Six-month rotation cycles that match their learning speed 
✅ Direct feedback loops showing their work's impact 
✅ Leaders they can learn from 
✅ Flexibility as an expectation, not a perk
✅ Work-life integration 

Think of it this way: Previous generations wanted linear career paths.

Gen Z wants choose-your-own-adventure paths with multiple routes to the same destination.

And to be honest, with the tools we have now, we can finally give them that.

👉 The question is: will you redesign work for the speed they're learning, or keep forcing them into structures built for a different era?

#GenZ #FutureOfWork #TalentRetention #Leadership

Most companies treat compliance like a checkbox.

The smartest ones treat it like the competitive advantage that it is.

In today's #LeadingDisruption, I explore why the organizations winning with AI are the ones asking: "How can we turn this regulation into a feature our customers actually want?"

Here’s what my “Winning with AI” coauthor Katia Walsh, Ph.D. and I have  learned:

💬 Explainability is a trust builder that customers demand.
🔒 Privacy by design is what makes your launches move faster.
💿 Data minimization is a speed advantage that lets you outpace competitors.

👉 Read the full newsletter to discover how to reframe every compliance requirement as a competitive advantage.

#AIStrategy #Compliance #ResponsibleAI #AIGovernance

I can spot someone who truly understands AI within five minutes of watching them work.

And it has nothing to do with how good their prompts are.

The real tells:

➡️ They've shifted from treating AI as a tool to treating it as a thinking partner. 
➡️ They focus on the problem, not perfecting the wording. 
➡️ And they know exactly when NOT to use it.

Most people obsess over prompt engineering. The ones actually getting results are building relationships with AI the same way they'd collaborate with a smart colleague.

Click through to see if you've made the shift 👉

What would you add to this list?

5 Signs Someone Actually Gets AI.

Here’s the biggest mistake companies make with AI:

They automate their existing process…

Bad habits and all.

Recently, I worked with a company that wanted to use AI to speed up their approvals process. Great idea, right? Except their workflow required seven approval steps. Seven people had to review and sign off on every decision.

So I asked: "Why seven?"

Long pause.

"That's just... how we've always done it."

📣📣📣 If your process is slow, bureaucratic, and frustrating without AI, it'll be slow, bureaucratic, and frustrating *with* AI. Just faster.

AI gives us the opportunity to completely rethink how work is done.

Instead of asking "How do we automate this?" ask "Should we even be doing this?"

What if AI could provide all the context and checking that three people used to do? What if one person working with AI support could make a better, faster decision than your entire approval chain?

➡️ This is what I mean by AI fluency.

In our forthcoming book, “Winning With AI,” Katia Walsh, Ph.D. and I explain that AI fluency isn’t just about automation…it’s about transformation. 

Swipe through to see what this looks like in practice, and ask yourself: what processes are you automating that you should be eliminating instead?

#AITransformation #ProcessImprovement #Leadership #Innovation #AIFluency

Don't Automate Your Bad Processes With AI.

How many of us have asked ChatGPT for help? Research shows that many of us use AI agents for therapy, camaraderie, and advice. 

I have a circle of trusted human advisors that help me with business quandaries, but before I reach out to them for advice, I ask my GPT for its perspective first. 

It helps me refine my thinking and come to my human advisors with more focused, thoughtful questions.

My advisors get better questions. I get better advice. Everyone wins.

This is exactly the kind of AI fluency Katia Walsh, Ph.D. and I write about in “Winning With AI” – using AI to enhance human relationships, not replace them. 

What feedback loops are missing in your work? Could AI help fill some of those gaps?

#AI #Entrepreneurship #SalesSkills #Leadership #DigitalTransform

Does the generation gap really exist?

During my next livestream, I’ll be tackling one of the most persistent myths about AI adoption: that younger workers naturally "get it" while older generations struggle.

Research on disruption proves it's completely bogus.

Here's what actually matters:

👉 You don't become more resistant to change the older you get, and you're not more disruptive when you're younger. Age doesn't predict AI fluency…but disposition does.

Some people are wired as early adopters. They're constantly asking, "What's new?" 

Others prefer to find tools they love and master them deeply. 

Both approaches are valuable. The problem starts when we confuse age with disposition, and disposition with open or closed-mindedness.

What this means for leaders:

If you're building AI strategy around generational assumptions, you're solving the wrong problem. The real question isn't "How do we get Boomers on board?" or "How do we leverage Gen Z's tech savviness?"

It's "How do we create an environment where people of all dispositions can develop AI fluency?"

Join me on Tuesday, December 9 at 9AM PT/12PM ET for a conversation on how to identify the real barriers to AI adoption in your organization, and what successful companies understand about building diverse, AI-ready teams.

Who's ready to stop blaming generations and start building better strategies?

What if AI doesn't just make us more productive…but more human?

Join me live on December 2nd as I explore one of the most provocative ideas from our upcoming book, “Winning With AI.” Co-written by Dr. Katia Walsh, the book explores the many facets of AI disruption, and for next week’s livestream, we’ll be focusing on the emergence of superhumans.

People who use AI to finally express the full depth of what makes us human.

Here's what I'll unpack:

🚀 The future beyond efficiency, and how we can be more human at work. 

🦸 What superhumans actually are, and their five amplified human traits. 

💡 What this means for leaders, and how to create an entirely new form of value.

This is the frontier. We don't yet know how to lead in this world, but the human potential we've always sensed finally has room to emerge.

We’ll be discussing this and more on December 2nd at 9AM PT/12PM ET. 

Let's explore what becomes possible when we stop asking AI to replace our humanity and start using it to amplify what makes us uniquely human.

Who's ready to talk about the future that's already arriving?

Here’s a fun AI experiment:

Ask your AI agent what it knows about you. You might be surprised by what it's observed.

But even if your AI doesn't know much about you personally, it knows plenty about the work you're trying to do.

This is where it gets interesting.

I've started asking my AI to think of the best examples of the type of work I want to create. Then I share my perspective on what I want it to incorporate: my unique angle, my values, my approach.

The result? AI that doesn't just execute tasks, but understands my intent and amplifies my thinking.

💡 Think of it less like using a tool and more like onboarding a very smart colleague who happens to have access to all of human knowledge.

How are you building your relationship with AI? What has surprised you about what it knows?

#AI #Leadership #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #ArtificialIntelligence

"If you're not making people uncomfortable, you're not leading."

Let that sink in.

When it comes to driving change and AI value, too many leaders focus on protecting legacy systems or keeping everyone in their comfort zone. 

Really, leaders need to focus on pushing forward, even when (especially when!) it feels uncomfortable.

Here's what my “Winning with AI” co-author Katia Walsh, Ph.D. and I  keep seeing: leaders want their teams to be AI-fluent, but they're not willing to challenge the status quo that's holding them back.

Here’s a guiding question for you:

👉 "What are we willing to let go of?"

Your legacy mindsets? Outdated workflows? Attachment to the status quo? Those are all good starting places.

True leadership means being willing to disrupt yourself first.

What's one legacy system or mindset you're protecting that AI could help you leave behind?

I've watched enough tech outages to spot a pattern.

The immature leaders panic. They demand hourly updates. They pull everyone into war rooms. They treat every crisis like it needs maximum chaos.

The mature leaders get calm. Crystal clear. Decisive.

When AWS went down in October, or when Microsoft had its outage, the difference wasn't in the technical response. It was in how leadership showed up.

Here's what separates reactive leadership from mature crisis management 👉

The real test isn't whether you have all the answers during a crisis, it's whether you can admit you don't know something without losing your team's confidence.

That's when you see who's actually leading versus who's just performing leadership.

What's your crisis leadership principle? Drop it in the comments.

#CrisisManagement #Leadership #TechOutages

How Leaders Respond to Outages Reveals Everything.

Want to know why your hybrid team constantly struggles to schedule meetings?

It's not the hybrid model. It's meeting sprawl.

When I was at Altimeter, we solved this with one simple rule: designated collaboration hours.

Here's how it worked:
⏰ All meetings happened between 10am-1pm Pacific 
⏰ Early enough for West Coast, not too late for East Coast 
⏰ ZERO meetings outside those hours 
⏰ Applied this with clients too 

The result? We could actually get deep work done. And so could our clients.

Everyone knew exactly when they'd need to be "on" for collaboration and when they could focus uninterrupted.

It didn’t prevent collaboration – it protected focus time so collaboration could actually  be effective.

Your people are struggling with scheduling because they’re drowning in back-to-back meetings with no time left for actual work.

Give them predictable collaboration windows. The rest takes care of itself.

#ProductivityTips #HybridWork #RemoteWork #TimeManagement

Here's a counterintuitive AI tip that cuts error rates by 50%:

💡 Ask AI to explain its reasoning.

I call it the "reasoning tax" because it costs you something: 

→ 30-40% more tokens 
→ Slower responses 
→ Extra review time

But for complex tasks, the research shows that error rates drop by half.

My go-to prompt addition: "Before you start, show me your reasoning."

Then I review the logic before it does the work. If something's off in the thinking, I catch it early.

Another trick I use: 

"Show me the sources you used" after I get the results. This lets me verify quality and recency, which is especially important when I need an answer that pulls from the most current data. 

These aren't just prompts. They're systems.

And that's the shift happening right now: we're moving from crafting better prompts to designing prompt SYSTEMS with chains, conditional logic, and validation.

The small tax upfront saves massive correction costs later.

#AIStrategy #PromptEngineering #QualityControl

When it comes to AI, most leaders are tracking the wrong KPIs.

When AI co-creates work with your team, it's not about who typed the words or ran the analysis.

It's about the quality of judgment. The business impact delivered. The speed of decision-making.

Outputs are the words on the page, the analysis in the spreadsheet.

Outcomes are the value those create for your business.

👉 Here's what shifts when you measure outcomes instead of outputs:

🔸 You start asking: How well are you prompting AI to get the best performance?
🔸 You evaluate: Can you tell when to delegate expertise to AI versus doing it yourself?
🔸 You assess: How effectively are you connecting AI-generated insights back to strategy?

Because AI generates outputs. Humans create outcomes.

Outcomes are harder to measure. They're more team-oriented. And some people resist that. They don't want their performance tied to someone else's work.

But if you're working as a team, collective outcomes are what matter. 🏆

The shift from measuring individual outputs to team outcomes isn't just an AI thing. It's a leadership thing.

And it starts with rewriting your KPIs to match.

#AILeadership #FutureOfWork #AIStrategy #Leadership

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with your loved ones. This year, I’m thankful for the ways that AI helps balance my work with my family life – and today, I’m extra-thankful for the ways it frees me up to be my most present self. 

In the spirit of spending time with family, here’s a fun poll to vote in before you get off LinkedIn and dig into some leftovers!

If you're asking about AI ROI, you've already missed the point.

Let me explain.

Recently, an organization with nearly 100,000 employees rolled out access to a general AI tool. They customized it, made it their own, and secured it internally. 

💰 Total cost: A couple hundred thousand dollars. 

🚀 The ROI: Unbelievable.

Their guiding question wasn’t “how much can we spend?” Instead, they focused on starting small:

 "What's the smallest investment that unlocks our next clear value milestone?"

Because if you're focused on ROI calculations, it means your AI applications aren't strategic. You're treating it like any other software purchase.

The real focus is about value creation through people and process change.

How much are you investing in helping your people and processes adapt to get value from the technology?

That's where AI's true cost and true return lies.

#DigitalTransformation #AIStrategy #LeadershipThinking

Given the Salesforce discussion, here’s a draft of my forthcoming book, “Winning with AI”. Here are ways it can help: 
- Chapter 1 is about how to get up to speed on how to use AI as a leader. It includes how to write good prompts and three exercises to practice. 
- ⁠Chapter 5 is how to use AI to support your business strategy. 
- ⁠Chapter 12 is how to use AI to advance your personal leadership

Book link: https://lnkd.in/esCpg6jR

I’m often asked what the best courses or workshops are to “get up to speed” on AI. My advice is that if you already use AI, you have the fundamentals to succeed. To get to that “30%” of expertise, focus on what you want to use AI to get things done. If you want to create more personalized marketing, then go deep into digital twins and synthetic data to test and develop personalized marketing messages at scale. If you want to explore how AI can optimize the supply chain, dive into how it can synthesize, automate, and triage decisions. And if you’re trying to figure out how to use AI in your organization, give AI one of your strategic objectives and ask for ideas/ways that AI can be used to support it. 

If you have any questions, please ping me! I’m happy to answer them! Let me know how I can support you in your AI journey!

When leaders say "we need our own AI model," they usually mean one of three things:

1️⃣ Data Privacy: We need a model where our data stays safe and isn't used to train the public version

2️⃣ Customization: We need a model trained on OUR content: our voice, our context, our knowledge base

3️⃣ Personalization: We need versions customized to individual team members

Here's the key: building a custom AI model doesn't mean building ChatGPT from scratch. 

It’s about taking an existing model and making it yours.

There are two key ways to customize: Fine-tuning and RAG. 

👉 Fine-tuning 
This approach involves training your model on a set body of data. Train it once, and it maintains a stable knowledge base ideal for repetitive tasks. 

👉 RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) 
This approach involves feeding your model fresh data on a regular basis. It’s ideal for information that constantly changes, and for organizations that need to keep up with updates, news, and market trends. 

Most organizations need RAG, not fine-tuning. Your data changes daily. Your model should, too.

Katia Walsh, Ph.D. and I dive deep into these technical decisions in our book, “Winning With AI,” helping leaders understand which approach best serves their strategy. 

Does your organization have a custom AI model? Let me know in the poll below!

#AI #BusinessStrategy #Innovation

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