Leadership
Boston AI Week Board of Directors
Boston AI Week is governed by 27 directors drawn from across the Massachusetts AI ecosystem — founders, investors, enterprise leaders, and academic and public-sector partners. They include Board Chair Judah Phillips, Sabrina Mansur of the Massachusetts AI Hub at MassTech, Carol Meyers of Glasswing Ventures, and Marcel Rindisbacher, Dean ad interim of Boston University's Questrom School of Business.
Together they set the festival's direction, open doors across industry and academia, and help convene the Commonwealth's AI community for Boston AI Week 2026.
Board Members
Builders, investors, and operators from across the region
Judah Phillips
Founder & Board Chair, Boston AI Week
FounderJudah founded Boston AI Week and serves as its Board Chair, helping convene founders, researchers, and operators across Greater Boston through community events and the annual festival.
Jenn leads Stellix, a Massachusetts-headquartered, employee-owned family of companies — including NECI — that helps life sciences, energy, and industrial organizations build AI-ready operations. She brings an operator's view of AI in complex, regulated industries to the board and to the Boston AI Summit stage.
Paul leads GAI Insights, providing research and advisory on generative AI and enterprise adoption. He helps leaders translate rapid AI advances into practical roadmaps, governance, and measurable business value.
Shira is Vice President for Innovation and Strategic Initiatives at Boston Globe Media, where she leads the company's AI initiatives and enterprise adoption across its newsrooms and business teams, and directs strategic growth programs. She co-launched the Globe Summit in 2021 and spent fifteen years as a political editor and reporter before moving into innovation leadership. She holds an MBA from Yale School of Management.
David leads Via AI, a conversational AI and intelligent automation platform for customer engagement. He works with teams to deploy scalable voice and chat experiences that improve service and growth.
Stefanie Chiras
SVP, Red Hat and The Open Accelerator
EnterpriseStefanie Chiras, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President at Red Hat, where she leads the company's AI Innovation Hub strategy and its contribution to The Open Accelerator, the AI accelerator for startups anchored in Massachusetts. She previously led Red Hat's global partner ecosystem and served as SVP and General Manager of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, following senior leadership roles at IBM.
Jonathan leads Maven AGI, building AI agents that automate complex enterprise workflows — especially in customer operations. His focus is on production-grade agents that deliver measurable impact.
Patricia leads C10 Labs, a startup studio and engineering partner helping teams design, build, and scale digital products. She works closely with founders and enterprise teams to ship modern software and AI solutions.
Mike Grandinetti
Fellow, Harvard Business School
EcosystemMike is a Fellow at Harvard Business School and a longtime entrepreneur, educator, and advisor to AI and deep-tech startups across the Boston ecosystem.
John is a Managing Director at Accenture, advising enterprise clients on AI strategy, transformation, and large-scale deployment across the Northeast.
Chris Hope
Founder & CEO, Loop Lab
EcosystemChris is the Founder and CEO of Loop Lab, a Cambridge-based social enterprise that trains young people of color in media production and creative technology. He brings a workforce-development and community-access lens to how AI opportunity reaches across Greater Boston.
Chris co-leads TeamShield Group, a Boston-based managed IT and cybersecurity firm. He brings decades of experience helping organizations modernize IT and strengthen cybersecurity so they can adopt AI with confidence.
Norm is the co-founder and CEO of Improv Asylum, the North End institution that has performed more than 10,000 improv and sketch shows for over two million people since 1998. He also leads Laugh Boston and Asylum NYC, and teaches teams worldwide the improv skills behind great collaboration — listening, adaptability, and thinking on your feet.
Sabrina Mansur
Director, Massachusetts Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hub
EcosystemSabrina is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts AI Hub at MassTech, coordinating the Commonwealth's AI strategy across industry, academia, and government to strengthen Massachusetts' leadership in responsible AI.
Carol is a Venture Partner at Glasswing Ventures, an early-stage venture firm investing in AI-first companies. She supports founders on product strategy, go-to-market, and scaling.
Debbie is the CEO and Founder of Upper Level Solutions, helping growing companies scale operations, talent, and systems so they can adopt AI and new technology with confidence.
Daniel Mitchell
Director of Startup Ecosystem, Dell
Strategic PartnerDaniel Mitchell is Director of Startup Ecosystem at Dell Technologies, where he leads Dell's engagement with founders and early-stage companies as they build and scale. He leads Dell's partnership with Boston AI Week 2026.
Samantha Perrone
Area Market Leader, Startups & Digital Natives, Google Cloud
Strategic PartnerSamantha is an Area Market Leader for Startups and Digital Natives at Google Cloud, helping early-stage and high-growth companies build on Google's AI and cloud platform. Before Google she held go-to-market roles at Amazon Web Services, and she is an active startup advisor and investor.
Kara founded Descrybe.ai to make contracts and legal language more actionable using AI. She combines legal expertise and product leadership to help teams reduce risk and move faster.
Gregory is Managing Partner at FoundersEdge, supporting early-stage companies with mentorship, resources, and funding. He brings operator experience and a founder-first approach to ecosystem building.
Marcel Rindisbacher
Dean ad interim, Questrom School of Business, Boston University
EcosystemMarcel is Dean ad interim of Boston University's Questrom School of Business and an internationally recognized scholar of financial economics. He brings academic leadership and a talent-development lens to the board, connecting Massachusetts' next generation of business leaders to the AI economy.
Nevin is a field sales representative at Google Cloud, working with companies across the Northeast as they adopt Google's cloud and AI platform. Before Google he held enterprise sales roles at InVision and at Boston-based BevSpot.
Elyas Tecle
Startups Go-to-Market, Google Cloud
Strategic PartnerElyas works on the Startups go-to-market team at Google Cloud, where he focuses on spotting breakout AI companies early and helping founders build on Google's AI stack. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania.
Yanni is an EVP, Development at WS Development, a leading developer and placemaker behind destinations across Greater Boston. He supports the statewide activation of Boston AI Week through community-centric partnerships.
Scott is Co-Founder & CTO of EnFi, building AI-powered tools for financial planning and forecasting. He brings deep engineering and data experience to help finance teams improve accuracy and decision-making.
John is Managing Director at Link Ventures and a longtime Boston ecosystem builder. He invests in and supports early-stage technology companies, connecting founders with community and strategic guidance.
Tim White
Founder & CEO, NuVert
FounderTim is Founder & CEO of NuVert, where he leads the company's work applying AI to real business problems. He brings a founder's perspective on building and scaling AI products to the board and to the Massachusetts AI community.