The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top 25 AI Executives of 2024. Against the backdrop of a rapidly advancing industry, these leaders stand out for their instrumental roles in driving innovation and transformation. Recent reports state that 55% of organizations were implementing or piloting artificial intelligence solutions in their business operations in 2023. This use of AI is projected to see a significant increase in 2024, with the market volume expected to reach $184 billion. With AI solutions focused on improving services from customer service to cybersecurity, this year’s honorees stand as pioneers in AI leadership.
Among this year's awardees, we have Wendy Petty, Chief Revenue Officer of WorkFusion, who brings over 30 years of experience in software startups and enterprise sales. Her leadership at WorkFusion highlights her dedication to leveraging AI to innovate operations, including anti-money laundering programs and customer service. Additionally, Veena Gundavelli, Founder and CEO of Emagia, has played a crucial role in revolutionizing finance operations. Emagia's AI-powered Digital Order-to-Cash Management Platform reflects Gundavelli's commitment to driving efficiency and innovation in global finance operations through AI. We also celebrate Venkat Gopalan, Chief Digital, Data & Technology Officer at Belcorp, who is uniquely leveraging AI in the consumer products field.
The selection process for The Software Report's Top 25 AI Executives of 2024 was methodical and based on an evaluation of each candidate’s contributions to AI innovation, organizational leadership, and impact in their respective fields. Please join us in recognizing the accomplishments of The Top 25 AI Executives of 2024.
1. Vinod Muthuswamy
Company: Resolve Tech Solutions
Title: Chief Executive Officer
As the Chief Executive Officer of Resolve Tech Solutions, Vinod Muthuswamy leads a global technology services company focused on modernizing and transforming industries through innovative IT services, consulting, and digital transformation solutions. Under his leadership, Resolve Tech Solutions is a trusted IT partner for numerous Fortune 500 enterprises and businesses across various sectors, including telecom, retail, government, aerospace, energy, and defense. He brings over two decades of experience in technology and business transformation to this role.
Throughout his career, Muthuswamy has fostered growth and innovation across various settings, from large corporations and startups. His expertise lies in expanding technology services through planning, the introduction of new services, innovation in new products, and the optimization of cloud and managed services operations. He has contributed to pioneering fields such as AI/ML, digital transformation, and software-enabled services linked to platforms like SAP and SNOW. Muthuswamy has overseen businesses with revenues surpassing $700 million and orchestrated a 300% increase in EBITDA over three years, achieved through the implementation of go-to-market (GTM) strategies, the introduction of innovative services, and the execution of proactive customer acquisition campaigns. Throughout his professional journey, Muthuswamy has held positions at organizations including GE, NEC, GDT, InnoTech, and 3Qube.
2. Andy Byrne
Company: Clari
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Andy Byrne, Chief Executive Officer at Clari, founded the company a decade ago. Alongside his co-founder Venkat Rangan, Byrne created the industry's first AI-powered revenue platform, assisting leaders in enhancing pipeline generation, increasing deal wins, and achieving precise forecasting, enabling them to address critical business inquiries regarding revenue projections.
Byrne has over two decades of experience in sales, marketing, business development, and management. Before Clari, he was part of the founding executive team at Clearwell Systems, contributing to its growth from pre-product & pre-revenue in 2005 to a $100 million run rate until its acquisition by Symantec in 2011. Prior to joining Clearwell, he co-founded Timestock, Inc., which was acquired by Computer Associates via the acquisition of Wily Technology. Byrne holds a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Nevada and received his MBA from San Jose State University.
3. Stephanie Buckner
Company: Altair
Title: Chief Operating Officer
As Chief Operating Officer, Stephanie Buckner is responsible for Altair's corporate development efforts and field operations, sales, and technical support globally. Previously, she served as senior vice president of corporate development where she was responsible for building partnerships across Altair’s entire ecosystem including software, hardware, cloud, the Altair Partner Alliance, and with customers. Altair is a provider of computational intelligence solutions, offering software and cloud solutions in simulation, high-performance computing (HPC), data analytics, and AI.
Earlier in her career, Buckner held senior management roles at Altair including director of strategic alliances where she surpassed new partner enrollment goals and was responsible for scouting, selling, onboarding, and managing relationships with third-party B2B software providers. Additionally, during her time at Altair, she was the co-founder and chief executive officer of WEYV. Prior to joining Altair, Buckner held analyst roles at Cisco Systems and American Express. Buckner earned a bachelor’s in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan.
4. Sunny Singh
Company: Aeyon
Title: President and Chief Executive Officer
Sunny Singh is the President & Chief Executive Officer of Aeyon. He is responsible for the company's direction, strategic goals, and growth objectives with a focus on delivering transformative solutions for defense and civil missions. With expertise in the Department of Defense (DoD) and related civilian agencies, Aeyon employs leadership teams that develop transformation strategies, advanced processes, and comprehensive technologies to deliver better outcomes.
Singh brings more than 15 years of executive leadership experience as a founder and former chief executive officer of a transportation and logistics company that served the Department of Defense. Singh graduated from Ohio University with his MBA and from Western Governors University with an undergraduate degree in business administration and management.
5. Venkat Gopalan
Company: Belcorp
Title: Chief Digital, Data & Technology Officer
Venkat Gopalan is the Chief Digital, Data & Technology Officer of Belcorp, a beauty and direct selling corporation. It brings together the commercial brands L'BEL, ésika and Cyzone, through which it provides an entrepreneurial opportunity to more than 900,000 women and impacts millions of lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has more than 6,000 employees and operates in 14 countries: Peru, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Costa Rica, the United States, Panama, and Switzerland.
Gopalan brings more than 25 years of experience to his current position. Before joining Belcorp, Venkat was the Global Vice President of Engineering & Operations at Estée Lauder, holding similar leadership roles in other major companies. His achievements include the development of innovative technical solutions that have created new customer experiences, driven revenue growth, and improved operational efficiency.
Gopalan graduated from Anna University Chennai with an undergraduate degree in manufacturing engineering.
6. Brandon Daniels
Company: Exiger
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Brandon Daniels is the Chief Executive Officer of Exiger, a supply chain and third-party risk AI company. Under his leadership, the company has achieved successful acquisitions, investments in AI and UX development, and double-digit ARR increases, while growing headcount across 10 different global jurisdictions. In December, the company obtained a landmark majority investment.
Previously, Daniels served as president of Clutch Group, contributing to the company's growth as one of the pioneering entities in legal and compliance analytics. He also held the position of vice president, global head of legal solutions at CPA Global, overseeing the transformation of the company from a patent annuities firm to one of the world's largest IP and legal software businesses.
7. Cindi Howson
Company: ThoughtSpot
Title: Chief Data Strategy Officer
Cindi Howson is the Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot and host of The Data Chief podcast. Howson is a professional specializing in business analytics and intelligence. ThoughtSpot is an AI-powered analytics company. ThoughtSpot enables access to live data across an organization, compatible with various cloud data platforms, facilitating the creation and interaction with detailed, personalized insights.
Howson was previously a Gartner research vice president. Before joining Gartner, she was the founder of BI Scorecard. She served as The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) faculty member for more than a decade. Prior to founding BI Scorecard, Howson was a manager at Deloitte & Touche and a global BI standards leader for Dow Chemical. She has her MBA from Rice University and an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Maryland.
8. Prashanti Aduma
Company: Dialpad
Title: Chief Information Officer
Prashanti Aduma is the Chief Information Officer of Dialpad. Dialpad specializes in AI communications for business, aiming to transform collaboration practices. Dialpad provides customers with integrated business and customer service communications, including a cloud business phone system, text and team messaging, video meetings, and an AI-powered contact center within the app. Aduma has more than 20 years of demonstrated leadership and project management experience at startups and enterprises. Aduma contributes to core business systems, data, and security frameworks to support Dialpad’s growth and global operations.
Aduma joined Dialpad from Salesforce, where she served as senior director of enterprise services. Before Salesforce acquired Vlocity, Aduma served as vice president of business applications at Vlocity and was responsible for the full suite of front and back-office business applications. Aduma has also held leadership positions at Rodan + Fields, SunPower, and VMware where she led the rollout of major IT and engineering initiatives. Aduma graduated from Osmania University with an undergraduate degree in engineering.
9. David Keane
Company: Bigtincan
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
David Keane serves as the CEO and Co-Founder of Bigtincan, a company specializing in sales enablement automation. With more than 20 years of B2B and B2C technology experience, Keane assists global brands in implementing AI-powered sales enablement solutions to enhance the buying experience. Notably, under his leadership, Bigtincan transitioned from a startup in 2010 to a publicly traded company surpassing $100m in revenue in 2021.
Prior to Bigtincan, Keane founded Quadtel Asia in Singapore and Veritel Wireless in Australia and had previously run intentional operations for Web startup Kgrind.com. Keane was involved in the mobile applications sector starting in 2008 with the release of the first iPhone SDK and oversaw the development, promotion, and expansion of popular apps such as BuzzMe and AdFree. Bigtincan has focused on artificial intelligence innovation, such as developing GenieAI, a suite of AI technologies aimed at enhancing the company's sales enablement platform. Originally from Australia, he earned his bachelor’s in economics from the Australian National University and a master’s in business from Macquarie University.
10. Whitney Benner
Company: Dataminr
Title: Chief People Officer
Whitney Benner is the Chief People Officer at Dataminr, a company known for its real-time AI platform designed to detect events, risks, and critical information from public data signals. Widely recognized for its AI capabilities, Dataminr’s platform enables fast real-time responses and risk management for public and private sector organizations including multinational corporations, governments, NGOs, and newsrooms.
Benner oversees HR strategy, DEI, internal communications, talent acquisition, learning and development, and HR operations. Her 20-plus years of HR experience includes being chief HR officer at Cision and leadership roles at PR Newswire, Medialink, and MJI Broadcasting. Benner earned a bachelor’s in psychology and philosophy from Skidmore College.
11. Andrew Joiner
Company: Hyperscience
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Andrew Joiner is the CEO of Hyperscience. He has demonstrated success in scaling growth companies in the AI, automation, and data analytics markets. Prior to Hyperscience, Joiner was chief executive officer of InMoment, a company specializing in customer experience and data analytics solutions. Under his leadership, InMoment grew revenue from $40 million to $200 million from 2016 to 2022.
Before InMoment, Joiner was senior vice president and general manager at HP Software, where he led sales, marketing, R&D, and product management for the business unit, and served as general manager for several lines of business. Andrew started his career in technology in 2002 as the founder and CEO of Singlecast, which was acquired by Autonomy in 2006. Joiner received his bachelor’s in psychology from Vanderbilt University and completed the General Management Program at Harvard Business School.
12. Amy Reichanadter
Company: Databricks
Title: Chief People Officer
Amy Reichanadter is the Chief People Officer of Databricks. Founded by the original creators of Apache Spark, Databricks provides a Unified Analytics Platform for data science teams to collaborate with data engineering and lines of business to build data products. Databricks aims to achieve faster time-to-value for users by creating analytic workflows that go from ETL and interactive exploration to production.
Prior to joining Databricks, Reichanadter served as chief people officer for Adaptive Insights, a business planning SaaS solution, where she led the company’s global human resources efforts for five years and then supported integration efforts for the first year after it was acquired by Workday. Preceding this, Reichanadter was the senior vice president of Human Resources at E2open, an intelligent supply chain provider, for nearly nine years. Reichanadter graduated from Palo Alto University with a PhD in clinical psychology, from Santa Clara University with a master’s in counseling psychology, and from UCLA with an undergraduate degree in psychology.
13. Caron Cone
Company: Hyperscience
Title: Chief People Officer
Caron Cone serves as Chief People Officer at Hyperscience. Hyperscience recognizes the significant potential of AI and hyper-automation to improve operations, enhancing efficiency and providing valuable insights. It prioritizes delivering solutions that meet performance standards, generate positive economic outcomes, and foster competitive advantages.
She has held senior HR roles at ADP, Turner Broadcasting (now Warner Media), Siemens, and Colonial Pipeline Company. Cone holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, a master’s in human resources management, and her MBA with a concentration in finance – both from the Keller Graduate School of Management. She also holds certifications in Strategic Workforce Planning and Change Management.
14. Liran Hason
Company: Aporia
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Liran Hason is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aporia, an AI control platform aimed at enabling Fortune 500 companies and organizations worldwide to develop AI applications that prioritize reliability, responsibility, and fairness. Aporia's platform features real-time guardrails, allowing leaders and product teams to actively address AI risks and maintain trust and security in their applications.
Before joining Aporia, Hason was a principal at Vertex Ventures and before that a director of sales engineering at Adallom. Earlier in his career, he worked with Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence as a senior software engineer. Hason graduated from The College of Management Academic Studies with an undergraduate degree in computer science.
15. Jim Kaskade
Company: Conversica
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Jim Kaskade is the Chief Executive Officer of Conversica. Conversica utilizes human-like, self-learning AI models derived from billions of human interactions over more than a decade to enable two-way conversations across various stages of the sales funnel, contributing to lead conversion, deal closure, and customer retention.
Before joining Conversica, he served as chief executive officer of Janrain, which was acquired by Akamai Technologies in January 2019. Before Janrain, Kaskade was the vice president and general manager for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). Prior to CSC, he was chief executive officer of a Big Data Cloud company. Kaskade graduated from the University of San Diego with his MBA and from UC Santa Barbara with an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and computer science.
16. Joanna Schloss
Company: Adeptia
Title: Chief Marketing Officer
Joanna Schloss is Chief Marketing Officer at Adeptia and has 25 years of experience transforming and evolving both global 500 companies and startups. She has worked on various projects involving AI, big data analytics, and business intelligence and has launched a variety of tools and applications for various companies, including SmartBear, Confluent, IBM, and Oracle, among others. She is responsible for the company’s marketing, business development, branding, strategic positioning, go-to-market strategy, and sales enablement.
Adeptia software aims to simplify and speed data integration of secure data exchanges between businesses and applications. Adeptia serves hundreds of mid and large-sized companies with AI-driven and business-user self-service data management that scales up to meet the needs of Fortune 500 mission-critical data exchanges. Previously, Schloss was at SmartBear, where she served as senior vice president of marketing. Before that, she was vice president of product marketing at Sauce Labs, senior director of product marketing at Confluent, and director of product marketing at Datameer, among other positions. Schloss holds a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.
17. Greg Ball
Company: Relativity
Title: VP Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Greg Ball, VP of Engineering Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning joined Relativity in 2021 and is responsible for the company’s AI-related features focused on document review and analytics. For over 25 years, his career in technology has encompassed work at startups, high-growth companies, and large enterprises in online travel and retail. Ball has created technology solutions for marketplace businesses, loyalty platforms, marketing tech, retail, e-commerce, and online travel.
Relativity develops software designed to assist users in organizing data, uncovering insights, and taking appropriate actions based on those findings. Its SaaS product, RelativityOne, manages large volumes of data and identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services, and government sectors.
Prior to joining Relativity, Ball was CTO at a retail-focused startup. Previously, he led technology organizations at Orbitz in marketing tech and loyalty. Ball first got his start in 1999 as an associate at Diamond Cluster. From there, he went on to Orbitz Worldwide, before eventually rising to chief technology officer at ShopRunner, his most recent position prior to joining Relativity. Ball graduated from DePauw University with an undergraduate degree in computer science.
18. Shannon West
Company: Datavant
Title: Chief Product Officer
Shannon West began her professional career 14 years ago. Today, she is the Chief Product Officer of Datavant. Through proprietary technology and a comprehensive healthcare network, the company aims to protect, connect, and ensure the secure delivery of global health data. Datavant enables more than 60 million healthcare records to move between thousands of organizations, more than 70,000 hospitals and clinics, 70 percent of the 100 largest health systems, and more than 500 real-world data partners.
West was previously a chief innovation officer of Ciox. From there, she was the first chief technology officer at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). She also served as part of the United States Digital Service, a start-up within the White House dedicated to bringing technical talent into government to improve the delivery of government services. During this time, she served as both the director of digital service and HHS and CMS and as a senior advisor for technology to the CMS Administrator. As senior advisor, she developed and executed the administration’s agenda for technology, including efforts that intertwined policy and internal technology to promote improved data sharing using modern standards and technology. West graduated from the University of Arizona with an undergraduate degree in Italian.
19. Natalie Dopp
Company: HireVue
Title: Chief People Officer
Natalie Dopp began her professional career 30 years ago. Today, she is the Chief People Officer of HireVue. HireVue leverages expertise in science, AI, and data to assess candidates' unique skills and potential, facilitating optimal job matching and suggesting future career paths.
With over 25 years of experience in human resources, Dopp’s most recent role was at Integrate, where she led the HR team through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During her tenure, the team created people programs to support business strategy. Before that, she implemented the foundation of the HR function at LifeLock. Dopp received her bachelor’s degree in human resources from the University of Arizona.
20. Veena Gundavelli
Company: Emagia
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Veena Gundavelli is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Emagia, a company providing an AI-powered Digital Order-to-Cash Management (OTC) Platform that brings the combined power of automation, analytics, and AI to the accounts receivables. Emagia offers a cloud-based, AI-powered fintech platform for receivables and treasury aimed at modernizing global finance operations for the digital age. For over a decade, Emagia has delivered SaaS-based order-to-cash automation platforms for global finance, F&A shared services, and BPO organizations.
Gundavelli brings 34 years of experience to her current role. Before joining Emagia, Gundavelli was a founder, president, and CEO at Solix Internet and before that, an engineering and program manager at Cisco Systems. Earlier in her career she worked with Canon Information & Imaging Solutions as a software engineer. Gundavelli graduated from Santa Clara University with a master’s in computer engineering and from Osmania University with an undergraduate degree in electronics and communications engineering.
21. Prashant Mahajan
Company: Zeda.io
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Prashant Mahajan is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Zeda.io. Zeda.io is a comprehensive platform for product managers, facilitating streamlined product definition, management, and collaboration processes. It offers a centralized location for various modules such as PRD, Feature lists, Prioritization, Roadmap, Persona, User Flow, Wireframes, Feedback collection, Mind Map, etc., allowing integration with company stacks like Jira, Slack, Freshdesk, Figma, Salesforce, and more Mahajan has 9 years of experience. He began his career in 2015.
Before joining Zeda.io, Mahajan was a senior product manager at Branch and before that, a senior lead product manager at Tokopedia. Earlier in his career, he worked with Paytm as a product manager. Mahajan graduated from Harvard Business School Online with a degree in business and managerial economics and from NIT Jalandhar with an undergraduate degree in engineering.
22. Wendy Petty
Company: WorkFusion
Title: Chief Revenue Officer
Wendy Petty is the Chief Revenue Officer of WorkFusion, a provider of AI digital workforce solutions for Fortune 500 enterprises, healthcare, transportation, banking, and financial services companies. Its AI Digital Workers perform skilled and decision-centric work in operations areas including anti-money laundering programs such as sanctions screening alert review, adverse media monitoring, and know your customer; customer service and onboarding; account opening and transaction monitoring; and other document-intensive compliance activities.
At WorkFusion, she is responsible for leading the company’s sales organization. She has spent more than 30 years building software startups and running enterprise software sales organizations. She previously led global sales organizations for Quest Software and Erwin. Prior to that, she held executive channel sales positions at Verizon Enterprise Solutions and CA Technologies. Petty graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University with an undergraduate degree in business.
23. Catherine Casey
Company: Reveal
Title: Chief Growth Officer
Catherine Casey is the Chief Growth Officer for Reveal. Reveal is a leading AI-powered platform for eDiscovery, document review, legal hold and investigations. The company drives the adoption of legal automation with its leading processing technology, visual analytics, and artificial intelligence capabilities. Reveal's software combines technology and human guidance to transform structured and unstructured data into actionable insight, helping organizations, including law firms, corporations, government agencies, and intelligence services, uncover more useful information faster.
Prior to Reveal, Casey served as the global director of Gibson Dunn's eDiscovery and Practice Technology group, specializing in eDiscovery, data analytics, and information governance and cybersecurity. Before joining Gibson Dunn, she ran the New York Computer Forensics and eDiscovery practice at PwC, built out the antitrust forensic technology practice, and served as the national subject matter expert on eDiscovery for KPMG. Casey is a Harvard graduate and Pepperdine School of Law alum.
24. Melanie Pita
Company: Foundation AI
Title: Chief Strategy Officer
Melanie Pita began her professional career 23 years ago. Today, she is the Chief Strategy Officer of Foundation AI. Foundation AI helps law firms and claims departments streamline the manual and error-prone process of managing inbound mail and emailed documents. The platform profiles inbound documents to the right claim or matter, classifies each by type, and extracts critical information to streamline downstream workflows.
Pita first got her start in 2001 as an attorney and partner at Cooper and Scully. From there, she went on to Western Litigation, before eventually rising to chief legal officer and chief product officer at Ontellus, her most recent position prior to joining Foundation AI. Pita graduated from Drake University Law School with a J.D. and from Indiana University Bloomington with an undergraduate degree in speech communication and rhetoric.
25. Aparna Dhinakaran
Company: Arize AI
Title: Founder and Chief Product Officer
Aparna Dhinakaran is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Arize AI, a machine learning observability company. Arize’s automated model monitoring and observability platform allows ML teams to detect issues when they emerge, troubleshoot possible causes, and improve overall model performance across both structured data and image and large language models.
Before Arize, Dhinakaran was a machine learning engineer and leader at Uber, Apple, and TubeMogul (acquired by Adobe). During her time at Uber, she built several core ML Infrastructure platforms, including Michelangelo. She has a bachelor’s degree from Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program, where she published research with Berkeley's AI Research group.
