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Lead This Way
Lead This Way is an interview series that features frank conversations with today’s leaders. The series will give consumers and investors an inside look into the innovative thinking and diverse life experiences of some of the biggest players in business to find out how they lead through change, and how they define success for themselves and their organizations.
- BusinessYahoo Finance Video
How Salesforce’s Clara Shih is driving its AI transformation
A titan of the tech industry, Salesforce (CRM) revolutionized software after popularizing cloud-based solutions during the dot-com bubble. Today, the company faces a new wave of disruption from AI. Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, is heading the charge to ensure Salesforce makes the leap successfully. Shih has built her career on staying one step ahead. An immigrant from Hong Kong, she built the first business application on Facebook at just 25, and founded Hearsay Social at 27.“I love to work on the forefront of disruption when it hasn't been figured out yet,” Shih said. “I love taking ideas, products, companies from zero to one.” Today, her challenge is to turn Salesforce into an AI leader - a task she feels optimistic about, after the pandemic highlighted significant gaps in customer service. By the time ChatGPT launched in 2022, Shih said Salesforce was ready to leverage generative AI. At this year’s Dreamforce event, Shih unveiled a new fleet of autonomous agents called Agentforce. The platform allows companies to build customized agents for customer use. Salesforce touts the technology as the third wave of AI transformation. But forging ahead will require navigating a complicated regulatory landscape – one that Shih is confident Salesforce can tackle by implementing guardrails to protect consumers and maintain trust.
- BusinessYahoo Finance Video
SAIC’s CEO: Shaping the future of AI-powered defense
From training air traffic controllers and advancing facial recognition and fingerprinting at ports of entry, to equipping soldiers in the field with the real-time data collection, SAIC (SAIC) is integrated into our lives in ways consumers may not know bear the SAIC stamp, using advanced AI technology to be better positioned for the future. Toni Townes-Whitley, became CEO of the $7.1B technical, engineering, and IT weapon systems company in October of 2023, and has already laid out her vision for the future of the company; which she says had struggled to grow organically in the five years before her arrival. The former Microsoft (MSFT) executive grew up in a public service family: Her father is a retired three-star Army General and she describes her mother as “an elementary school principal who ran our household with the precision of a Brigade Commander through four hardship tours.” This combination of tech-savviness and patriotism arguably positions her to put her stamp on SAIC’s digital transformation and corporate culture after a year of transition. Modern warfare and intelligence is evolving, with 75% of SAIC’s revenue coming from the Department of Defense, and the rest from civilian partnerships. SAIC partners with government customers on what the company calls its National Imperatives: Undersea Dominance, Border of the Future, Citizen Experience, All-Domain Warfighting and Next-Generation Space. “Ethical AI” as Townes-Whitley calls it, plays a vital role in the goals and missions SAIC has set forth. Recently named as one of Forbes 50 over 50 for Innovation, SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley is one of just two Black women currently running a Fortune 500 company and the first Black woman CEO of a publicly-traded defense company – accomplishments she would like to see normalized in this day and age. Yahoo Finance sat down with Townes-Whitley at SAIC headquarters in Virginia and its biometric testing facility in Maryland to discuss the experiences, skills and key decisions that have shaped her into the leader she is today, and the strategies driving her vision for SAIC’s external growth as well as internal goals of gender parity and ongoing digital transformation. For more of our Lead This Way series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance Live for more expert insight and the latest market action, Monday through Friday.
- BusinessYahoo Finance Video
SAIC’s CEO Toni Townes-Whitley: Taking the reins amid war
It’s one thing to take over as head of a $7.1B engineering and IT weapon systems company. It’s entirely something else when the CEO steps into the role just days before one of the deadliest and most intense conflicts in the Middle East breaks out. Toni Townes-Whitley joined Virginia-based SAIC (SAIC) as CEO on October 2, 2023. Five days later, Hamas attacked Israel in the most deadly assault the US ally has seen in its history. Since then, Townes-Whitley has been not only looking to cement her place and style of leadership at the 55-year-old company, she has been focusing on shifting the company’s efforts to a more robust, technology-driven approach to supporting US allies in the throes of military conflict, notably Israel and Ukraine. With 75 % of SAIC’s business coming from partnerships with the Department of Defense, Townes-Whitley, a Microsoft (MSFT) ethical AI veteran, a daughter of a decorated, three-star general, is passionate about not only supporting and protecting the US and its allies from bad actors, but in being part of a longer-lasting peace effort using technology to create what she calls, “deterrent power.” SAIC plays a big role in not only defense but using data in the intelligence space to improve security such as facial recognition systems at airports and border crossings as well as to deter conflict around the world, according to Townes-Whitley. Yahoo Finance sat down with Townes-Whitley at SAIC’s headquarters in Virginia and its biometric testing facility in Maryland to discuss her experiences, skills and key decisions that have shaped her leadership of one of the largest US defense companies. For more of our Lead This Way series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance Live for more expert insight and the latest market action, Monday through Friday.
