Member since June 2026
Heena Purohit is a globally recognized AI product leader, startup advisor, and diversity advocate with 15+ years of experience building and scaling cutting-edge technologies. Currently Director of AI Startups at Microsoft, she helps identify and coach high-growth AI startups, and helps accelerate their growth and unlock value across industries. She also advises enterprise executives and boards on integrating innovation responsibly and strategically within their companies.
Previously, she served as Head of Product at IBM's Corporate Incubator, leading the discovery and commercialization of various innovations in Generative AI, Foundation Models, Synthetic Data, Multi-Modal AI, and more from 0 -> 1 and scale.
She is the Founder of AI for Her, a global community empowering over 12,000 women and gender minorities to thrive in the AI space. Named a LinkedIn Top AI Voice, AI Magazine’s Top Women Innovators in AI, and one of MKAI’s Top 20 AI Mavericks, Heena is a dynamic speaker who brings a rare blend of deep technical insight and strategic business acumen to every stage she steps on.
Whether advising C-suite leaders or mentoring early-stage founders, she is on a mission to democratize AI and shape a future where innovation is equitable, responsible, and human-centered.
Nothing lights me up more than helping people understand the real-world magic of AI—especially when it sparks that "aha!" moment. I love breaking down buzzwords into practical, relatable examples that show how AI isn’t just for technical people—it’s a strategic advantage for every business. Whether I’m demystifying Generative AI for execs, guiding startups on building responsible AI products, or empowering the next wave of women in tech, I thrive on making AI accessible, inclusive, and transformative.
Just before the "ChatGPT" wave happened, I was coaching a non-technical founder who had a brilliant idea but felt completely stuck. To which I said, “Let me show you something.” I pulled up a OpenAI's playground and had GPT-3 summarize a customer support transcript, rewrite it in a more empathetic tone, and generate a follow-up message—all in under a minute. Their eyes lit up. And I told her of the off-the-shelf APIs and how her engineers could integrate this into their product. Three weeks later, they had a working prototype that impressed their first enterprise client. Three months later, they eventually landing funding.
What I love about this story is: it’s not unique. I do this kind of “AI translation” every day—with startup teams, enterprise executives, and sometimes even Uber drivers who ask what I do. I once explained how ChatGPT works using the example of how people finish each other’s sentences in a conversation. The driver said, “Ohhh, like my brain’s autocomplete!” Exactly.
I help people stop from drowning in AI buzzwords—transformers, embeddings, diffusion models—and help demystify how to build and integrate AI into products, processes, and ultimately drive business value.
I began my Product Management career building Industrial IoT software and quickly realized that data was the new oil—but only if you knew how to refine it. That curiosity led me into AI before it was cool, and I became obsessed with connecting innovation to impact. At IBM, I worked on everything from Conversational AI to Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning, and even launched the first wave of transformer models at IBM Watson. But it was during my time leading multiple GenAI startup teams at IBM’s internal incubator that I had my “a-ha” moment—seeing how powerful AI could be if we built it responsibly, inclusively, and with real users in mind.
That’s what inspired me to support the leading AI startups in the world at Microsoft. But helping leading AI startups shape the future— I am playing an active role in the creation of the AI-powered future. I'm also driven to reduce the gender gap in AI, helping people gain AI literacy, and making sure AI works for everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7XR_n0H23k
The talk covers:
1/ The real state of the gender gap in AI + its impact (Spoiler: it’s worse than most people think).
2/ Research-backed reasons on why this gap exists.
3/ A simple, practical framework to close it - and help more people build AI literacy.
Just before the "ChatGPT" wave happened, I was coaching a non-technical founder who had a brilliant idea but felt completely stuck. To which I said, “Let me show you something.” I pulled up a OpenAI's playground and had GPT-3 summarize a customer support transcript, rewrite it in a more empathetic tone, and generate a follow-up message—all in under a minute. Their eyes lit up. And I told her of the off-the-shelf APIs and how her engineers could integrate this into their product. Three weeks later, they had a working prototype that impressed their first enterprise client. Three months later, they eventually landing funding.
What I love about this story is: it’s not unique. I do this kind of “AI translation” every day—with startup teams, enterprise executives, and sometimes even Uber drivers who ask what I do. I once explained how ChatGPT works using the example of how people finish each other’s sentences in a conversation. The driver said, “Ohhh, like my brain’s autocomplete!” Exactly.
I help people stop from drowning in AI buzzwords—transformers, embeddings, diffusion models—and help demystify how to build and integrate AI into products, processes, and ultimately drive business value.
I began my Product Management career building Industrial IoT software and quickly realized that data was the new oil—but only if you knew how to refine it. That curiosity led me into AI before it was cool, and I became obsessed with connecting innovation to impact. At IBM, I worked on everything from Conversational AI to Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning, and even launched the first wave of transformer models at IBM Watson. But it was during my time leading multiple GenAI startup teams at IBM’s internal incubator that I had my “a-ha” moment—seeing how powerful AI could be if we built it responsibly, inclusively, and with real users in mind.
That’s what inspired me to support the leading AI startups in the world at Microsoft. But helping leading AI startups shape the future— I am playing an active role in the creation of the AI-powered future. I'm also driven to reduce the gender gap in AI, helping people gain AI literacy, and making sure AI works for everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7XR_n0H23k
The talk covers:
1/ The real state of the gender gap in AI + its impact (Spoiler: it’s worse than most people think).
2/ Research-backed reasons on why this gap exists.
3/ A simple, practical framework to close it - and help more people build AI literacy.
