Enterprise AI Operating Partner
I take on the problems nobody has solved yet.
I help executives and boards turn emerging technologies and complex systems into business outcomes. I’ve spent my whole career successfully navigating change. I understand the good, the bad and the ugly with emerging technologies, and I want to help leverage technology for good.
Start a conversationWhere I usually come in
Most of this work starts in one of three places.
None of them are technical problems. I’ve built new AI businesses from nothing inside global organizations, so I can usually tell you which one you’re in, and what it will take to move.
You think you’re missing something.
Everyone is announcing wins and you can’t tell which are real. I’ve shipped enough of them to know which claims survive contact with an operating business, and which are a demo with a press release attached.
You’re not sure the investment is right.
The technology is rarely the limiting factor. Talent, data, governance and the operating model decide whether a program reaches production. I can tell you which one is going to stop you, in weeks rather than quarters.
Nobody owns the risk.
Model risk, organizational risk and human risk are three different problems, and most boards are only shown the first. I put technical risk in front of executives in language they can act on.
If any of that sounds like your situation, that’s the conversation worth having.
What I can do for you
Open to select board advisory roles and project-based consulting engagements, including fractional, interim, and contract work.
The board asks whether the plan is real. I’ve been the one on the hook for the answer.
Technology and risk committees. Companies where artificial intelligence has become a board-level question and the board needs someone who has shipped it, not someone who has read about it.
Start a board conversation Executive diagnostics and turnaroundFind out what’s actually stopping the program, in weeks.
A short, paid diagnostic that tells you the truth about a stalled or unproven artificial intelligence program: whether it reaches production, what it will cost when it does, and which of talent, data, governance or the operating model is the real constraint. It can become the turnaround.
Book a diagnostic Interim and fractional leadershipBring me the problem that has already failed twice.
I take the ambiguous mandate and the program that won’t ship. Interim consulting, fractional and contract leadership for organizations that need a senior operator rather than a deck.
Scope a project SpeakingKeynotes, board briefings and executive sessions.
Harvard Club CIO Summit. Grace Hopper. Invited keynotes in Chile and Mexico City. On artificial intelligence, human ingenuity, and what happens to expertise when anyone can query a sophisticated model.
Topics and availabilityBuilt and led at
IBM Deloitte PwC Genpact U S West AMD HP CenturyLink Tandem Computers NCAR CIRES Bureau of Land Management
The direction of travel
It started with rocks.
Almost everyone here started in software and reached toward the physical world. I went the other way. Photogrammetry and remote sensing before enterprise architecture. Atmospheric research before cognitive computing. AI capabilities built and scaled across IBM, Genpact, Deloitte and PwC, including a consulting business taken from zero to $200 million-plus, and a career that began by measuring the ground from the air.
Adaptation isn’t a technology problem. It’s a problem of what people and institutions do with the technology once it arrives.
- Earth Photogrammetry, remote sensing, GIS Scholarship from the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). Photogrammetry-based geographic information systems for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The satellite data archive at CIRES. Science computing at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. A degree in applied computer science and GIS from the University of Colorado Boulder.
- Systems Enterprise architecture and the early commercial internet Fault-tolerant UNIX at Tandem, semiconductors at AMD, then data center operations across 14 states at U S West. Founder of CoffeeCakes.com, an Internet Retailer Top 500 company written up by The Wall Street Journal.
- Cognition Cognitive computing and conversational AI IBM Distinguished Engineer, 1999 to 2015. Chair of the IBM Academy of Technology. Chief information officer on a $1 billion banking transformation in Mexico City. The first to commercially operationalize Watson in Africa. The Neural Intelligence Platform and Neural Chat at Genpact, co-developed with Google. Six patents. Lobbied the United States Congress on cognitive computing policy.
- Now Generative AI, agentic systems, applied futures At Deloitte, a consulting business built from zero into a $200 million-plus revenue engine and roughly two thousand professionals. At PwC, North America AI strategy. Now agentic systems.
Board and advisory
The board asks whether the AI plan is real. I’ve been the one on the hook for the answer.
Taking board director and advisory board seats now. Public, private and nonprofit.
I’ve built it, not governed it from a distance.
Built from the ground up at IBM, Genpact, Deloitte and PwC. I know what it costs, what it breaks and how long it really takes, because I carried the number.
I can tell a plan from a slide.
Cognitive computing, conversational AI and now agentic systems, put into live operations, including Watson in healthcare across Africa. CoffeeCakes.com, which I founded, still runs as a working laboratory for what agentic commerce actually does to a business.
I put technical risk in front of executives in language they can act on.
Enterprise architecture and regulated industry, with testimonials on record by name from chief information officers, partners and general managers. Stevie Award, Most Innovative Woman of the Year in Technology.
Advisory Board Member, Women in Leadership with AI-Driven Engagement
University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Term March 2026 to March 2027. View the credential.
Where I fit
Technology and risk committees. Companies where artificial intelligence has become a board-level question and the board needs someone who has shipped it. Private equity portfolio boards. Nonprofit boards in climate, water, education and human capability.
The Frontier Institute for Applied Futures
I founded the Frontier Institute for Applied Futures, an independent nonprofit focused on helping people and society prepare for accelerating technological change. Its flagship initiative, Horizon 2044, looks toward the first generation born into the era of mass AI adoption and asks what we must begin changing now so they can thrive as they reach adulthood.
The Institute works at the intersection of human experience, a climate-forward future and emerging technology.
On the record
Watch
Conversational and cognitive artificial intelligence in live operations, years before the current wave.
Also on the record: Are Americans ready for voice banking, American Banker.
Sherry has a rare ability to quickly break down a complex problem, technical or otherwise, into simple components that anyone can understand.Guillermo GuemezCTO, Wonderful.ai
Working on something that matters?
I’m always interested in people working on consequential problems.
