Hi Elphas!
I’m Ariadna Font Llitjos, Ari for short, and I’ve been in tech for over 23 years in many different capacities. From Computational Linguist to software engineer and UX designer, from manager and Design Principal to Director of Emerging Technologies at IBM Research (working on bringing Quantum out of the lab and into the world and AI).
I love innovating and creating space for new leaders to emerge and teams to push the boundaries of the possible in a sustainable and responsible way.
I was previously Senior Director of Engineering at Twitter (until November, when Elon Musk took over) and the last few months have been a great opportunity for me to take a step back and think about my future as well as the future of the industry and the world.
So far, my conclusions can be summarized as: 1) I want to try being my own boss for a while and 2) no matter what the future brings, there will be a need for deep, meaningful human connection, so something I am exploring is leveraging AI technology to create and facilitate such connections in a safe way.
When I am not polishing my pitch deck or trying the latest generative AI tech, you’ll find me either doing yoga, hiking with my dogs or watching one of my daughters' soccer games. I am not very good at having downtime, but when I do, it almost always involves watching a movie or two.
Ask me anything about being a technical leader and bringing your whole self to work, product development, user-centric design, managing teams, AI, raising 2 kids while working in tech, surviving with two teenage daughters in the house or anything else!