Event: AI Skills Conference 2026

Date: 14 May 2026

MC: Will Schenk — TheFocus.AI

Speaker Directory

Phone-friendly contacts guide for the MC. All 35 speakers with their talk topics, LinkedIn profiles, and X/Twitter handles — everything you need to open connections after the show.

AMDAWSBackspace OddityBolt.new (StackBlitz)Condé NastDatabricksDoorDash / DeliverooFuturity SystemsGoogleGoogle DeepMindHackerNoonHilden LabsKinetikMAM MediaMetaMidBrainMiroOpen AI ForumPlurioProduct GrowthRemote.comSAPSamsungScale AISpotifyTheFocus.AITikTokTripleTenTuring Postex-Meta

01 Schedule — Main Stage

NYC Time · 14 May 2026

Time	Type	Session	Speaker(s)
11:00	Introduction	Co-hosts introduction	Will Schenk & co-hosts
11:05	Panel	How to become irreplaceable with AI	Dhrupad Sethi, Ksenia Se, Robin Sutara — moderated by Margaux Miller
11:40	Presentation	How to use Claude to get your dream job	Aakash Gupta
12:00	Presentation	Building your AI Chief of Staff	Dima Zborovsky
12:20	Panel	How corporations make AI decisions	David Smooke, Tanya Roosta, Arun Karthik — moderated by Andrew Zakonov
12:50	Presentation	Stop Trying Not To Get Fired	Alexandra Tomashevskaya
13:05	Panel	The 2026 AI Stack	Will Schenk, Cecilia MoSze Tham, Carlos Calva, Timmy Ghiurau
13:35	Presentation	From Fine-Tuning to Reasoning: building agents	Gopala Dhar
13:55	Presentation	The future of AI in creative	Sandro Gelashvili
14:15	Presentation	AI Security Red Teaming	David Campbell
14:35	Panel	AI in Practice	Stuart Clark, Pearl Pullan, Ben Shih, Ankur Khare
14:55	Presentation	The End of Apps: AI Personal Assistants	Andrew Zakonov
15:15	Panel	AI in marketing	Seva Ustinov, Max Epifanov, Natasha Stolberg, Alexandra Vladovska
15:45	Presentation	Safer AI: Prompts that protect user trust	Margaux Miller + Daniela Busse
16:05	Presentation	AI agents for ad management	Seva Ustinov
16:20	Presentation	AI Agents Ecosystem	Stuart Clark
16:40	Presentation	AI transforming product management	Alexandra Tomashevskaya

02 Speakers

35 speakers · Tap a LinkedIn/X icon to open their profile

Paige Bailey

AI Developer Relations Engineering Lead — Google DeepMind

Frantz Lohier

System Architecture & Strategy Manager — AWS

Dima Zborovsky

AI Director (Forbes 30 Under 30) — DoorDash / Deliveroo

Building your AI Chief of Staff

How to design and deploy an AI-powered chief of staff to augment executive productivity and decision-making.

Gopala Dhar

AI Engineering Lead — Google

From Fine-Tuning to Reasoning: building agents

A technical deep-dive on the journey from fine-tuning foundation models to building reasoning-capable AI agents.

Sandro Gelashvili

Head of Creative Works — Google

The future of AI in creative

Exploring how generative AI is reshaping the creative landscape and what comes next for artists, designers, and storytellers.

Stuart Clark

Senior Developer Advocate — Spotify

AI in PracticeAI Agents Ecosystem

A look at the rapidly evolving ecosystem of AI agents, tooling, and the developer experience.

Dhrupad Sethi

Filmmaker & VFX Supervisor — Meta

How to become irreplaceable with AI

Leveraging AI in creative production while maintaining the human touch that makes work irreplaceable.

Tanya Roosta

Director of AI — AMD

How corporations make AI decisions

Enterprise AI strategy, hardware considerations, and decision-making frameworks at scale.

Angela Jimenez

AI Trainer / Physician — Open AI Forum

Pearl Pullan

Product Manager, Conversational AI — Samsung

AI in Practice

Building conversational AI products that users trust and love.

Martin Slaney

Product Lead — Bolt.new (StackBlitz)

Ben Shih

Staff Product Designer — Miro

AI in Practice

Designing AI-powered collaboration experiences.

Ankur Khare

AI Innovation Advisor — SAP

AI in Practice

Enterprise AI innovation and the practicalities of deploying AI at scale within large organizations.

David Campbell

Head of AI Security — Scale AI

AI Security Red Teaming

Methodologies and best practices for red-teaming AI systems to identify vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

Alexandra Tomashevskaya

Product Director — Remote.com

Stop Trying Not To Get FiredAI transforming product management

Natasha Stolberg

Creative Strategy Lead — ex-Meta

AI in marketing

Creative strategy at the intersection of brand storytelling and AI-powered campaign optimization.

Seva Ustinov

Founder & CEO — Plurio

AI in marketingAI agents for ad management

Max Epifanov

VP Performance Marketing — TripleTen

AI in marketing

Performance marketing strategies augmented by AI and the changing skill requirements for marketing teams.

Robin Sutara

Americas Enablement Leader (ex-CDO Microsoft UK) — Databricks

How to become irreplaceable with AI

Building organizational capability and data literacy to ensure teams thrive alongside AI.

Arun Karthik

Director of Data Solutions Engineering — Condé Nast

How corporations make AI decisions

Data engineering and AI strategy at a global media organization.

Daniela Busse

VP Technology & Product Strategy (ex-Meta, Microsoft, Samsung, PhD) — Hilden Labs

Safer AI: Prompts that protect user trust

Designing prompt strategies and product guardrails that balance AI capability with user safety and trust.

Margaux Miller

Global MC, TEDx Speaker — MAM Media

How to become irreplaceable with AI — *11:05 AM* (moderator)Safer AI: Prompts that protect user trust — *3:45 PM* (co-presenter with Daniela Busse)

Moderating the opening panel and co-presenting on prompt safety and user trust.

Will Schenk

Co-founder & Conference MC — TheFocus.AI

The 2026 AI Stack

The evolving tools, frameworks, and infrastructure layers that define the modern AI development stack.

Alexandra Vladovska

Marketing & Growth — TikTok

AI in marketing

Growth marketing strategies powered by AI at one of the world's most influential social platforms.

Cecilia MoSze Tham

Founder — Futurity Systems

The 2026 AI Stack

Architecture decisions and system design for building future-proof AI applications.

Carlos Calva

AI Builder — MidBrain

The 2026 AI Stack

Hands-on perspectives on building with the latest AI tools and frameworks.

Timmy Ghiurau

AI Engineer — MidBrain

The 2026 AI Stack

Engineering patterns for production AI systems.

Andrew Zakonov

CEO (built JetBrains coding agent) — Kinetik

How corporations make AI decisions — *12:20 PM* (moderator)The End of Apps: AI Personal Assistants

Anastasia Krivosheeva

Head of Growth (ex-JetBrains, Zalando, Google) — Kinetik

Yegor Korobeynikov

Founder & CEO (led Miro rebrand) — Backspace Oddity

Anna Barinova

Product Lead (50+ products) — Backspace Oddity

Siraj Hasanov

AI Engineering Lead (ex-Meta) — Backspace Oddity

Ksenia Se

AI industry analyst — Turing Post

How to become irreplaceable with AI

AI industry analysis and thought leadership.

Aakash Gupta

Product growth expert — Product Growth

How to use Claude to get your dream job

Leveraging Claude and AI tools for career advancement and interview preparation.

David Smooke

Founder & Publisher — HackerNoon

How corporations make AI decisions

Tech publishing, developer communities, and corporate AI strategy.