Heena Purohit

Heena Purohit is a global AI leader, speaker, and advocate dedicated to shaping the future of enterprise AI and advancing diversity in technology. She currently serves as Director of AI Startups at Microsoft, where she has a dual role: she is responsible for finding and supporting the world's top data and AI startups, and regularly consults Fortune 500 companies and helps them make sense of the startup ecosystem and innovate responsibly.

With 15 years of experience building and scaling innovative technologies, the majority of which were AI products, Purohit has launched multiple AI products from zero to one and helped enterprises adopt cutting-edge AI solutions.

Previously, Purohit was Head of Product at IBM's in-house incubator where she led a portfolio of internal AI startups in cutting-edge areas such as GenAI, synthetic data, multimodal AI, and other horizontal and vertical AI apps.

She has been recognized for her leadership in technology and diversity, including the University of Notre Dame's prestigious Recent Alumni Award. She also founded AI for Her, an initiative focused on closing the gender gap in AI.

A sought-after speaker, Purohit has presented at more than 50 conferences and events worldwide, including TEDx, and is known for her thought leadership on AI adoption, responsible AI, startup innovation, and building inclusive pipelines for the AI revolution.