The Hon. Michelle K. Lee is a board director, digital transformation strategist, and CEO of Obsidian Strategies (www.obsidianstrategiespc.com), a consulting firm that advises companies on realizing their artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities, as well as developing procedures to comply with the evolving regulatory AI landscape. Ms. Lee also serves as a board director for MassMutual (Fortune 100), Unity Technologies (NYSE: U) and MIT. She brings unique multi-disciplinary insights from her experiences at the top levels of technology, law, business and government to her board and client engagements, helping to “see around corners” for opportunities and risks.
Recently, Ms. Lee was a senior executive and the Vice President of the Machine Learning (ML) Solutions Lab and Computer Vision businesses at Amazon Web Services (AWS). In this role, Ms. Lee led a global professional services team to help envision the art of the possible and practical with machine learning to create new lines of business, enhance customer experiences and increase operational efficiencies. Ms. Lee also led AWS’ computer vision business worldwide and played a key role in the ensuring the fairness of its AI services. Ms. Lee has a unique understanding of the most fruitful applications of AI and how to navigate the complex and evolving AI regulatory environment.
Before Amazon, Ms. Lee served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). She led one of the largest intellectual property offices in the world and was the principal advisor to the President, through the Secretary of Commerce, on intellectual property policies. In this role, Ms. Lee brought AI and data analytics to this 200+ year old governmental agency to increase the quality, speed and consistency of patents issued. Prior to public service, Ms. Lee was an executive for 8 years at Google.
Ms. Lee is a frequent speaker on AI, innovation and digital transformation, including with the Wall Street Journal, The World Knowledge Forum, Fortune, Bloomberg, NPR, the MIT Sloan Management Review, and at South-by-Southwest. Ms. Lee is an MIT AI Lab-trained computer scientist, who worked at the MIT AI and Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories. Ms. Lee holds a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering and computer science, where she wrote her thesis on artificial intelligence, and a J.D. from Stanford. She enjoys contemplating how technologies can transform organizations to the benefit of our society.