What happens when a former startup CEO brings performance management discipline into city government?

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with San José Mayor Matt Mahan about applying data-driven decision-making, KPIs, and accountability—practices familiar to tech leaders—to the public sector. Drawing from his experience running venture-backed startups, Mahan explains how focus, measurement, and feedback loops are reshaping how City Hall operates.

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How do you build and scale digital innovation inside a 170-year-old company?

Luke Gebb, EVP of Global Innovation at American Express, joins Peter High to share how Amex Digital Labs brings emerging technologies to market through a disciplined stage-gate process.

Gebb outlines how his team incubates and graduates products that become core to Amex’s customer experience—from peer-to-peer payments to blockchain-based travel rewards. He also shares lessons in navigating cross-functional execution, partnering with big tech, and launching products customers actually use.

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AI can’t fix what the healthcare system fundamentally gets wrong.

In this episode, Liam Donohue, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at 406 Ventures, shares why his firm is betting on value-based care—and why AI risks breaking the system if applied to the wrong incentives.

From launching EdTech’s earliest funds to shaping 406 Ventures’ sector focus in healthcare, cybersecurity, and infrastructure, Liam offers hard-won lessons in disciplined investing, operator-first teams, and systemic transformation.

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What if AI is repeating the same mistakes society made during the Industrial Revolution?

In this episode of Technovation, Peter is joined by Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics and Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management Simon Johnson. Throughout their conversation, they explore why automation has historically failed to deliver shared prosperity and why artificial intelligence may be following the same path. Drawing on centuries of economic history, Johnson explains how mechanization once displaced workers faster than new jobs were created, fueling inequality and social unrest.

Together, they discuss what today’s AI leaders must learn from history, why institutions matter more than technology alone, and how workforce anxiety is an early warning sign of deeper structural problems.

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Most enterprises aren’t struggling with AI because of technology. They’re struggling because they’re trying to scale pilots instead of platforms.

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Atilla Tinic, CIO of Qualcomm, about how the company is moving beyond one-off AI use cases to build an enterprise AI platform designed for scale. Tinic explains why unified and validated data is essential for AI accuracy, how Qualcomm enables developers and business teams through a centralized AI marketplace, and why security must be embedded into AI architecture from day one.

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What does it actually take to move AI from experimentation to enterprise-wide impact?

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Leigh-Ann Russell, Chief Information Officer and Global Head of Engineering at Bank of New York (BNY), about how one of the world’s most systemically important financial institutions is operationalizing AI at scale. Leigh-Ann shares how BNY trained 99% of its 50,000-person workforce on AI, moved beyond pilots into deep enablement, and empowered employees across technical and non-technical roles to build AI agents that drive real productivity gains.

Key topics discussed include:

Training nearly the entire workforce to become AI-literate

Moving from AI pilots to enterprise-wide enablement

Empowering employees to build and deploy AI agents

Reducing cognitive load while improving speed and resilience

Leading AI adoption through hands-on executive behavior

What if the key to enterprise AI wasn’t a tool, but a mindset?

Mark Bloom, Global CIO at AJ Gallagher, joins Technovation to share how the 70,000-person insurance giant is scaling AI by leading with data quality and cultural alignment—not flashy tools.

In this episode, Bloom details:

What really drives cybersecurity investment and why is “threat” often the last reason?

In this episode, Rakesh Loonkar, co-founder of Transmit Security and general partner at Picture Capital, shares a contrarian take on how cybersecurity product categories emerge and why compliance and platform shifts often matter more than actual threats. Drawing on decades of experience as both operator and investor, Rakesh explains how he evaluates risk timing, founder mindset, and market inflection points.

Key highlights from the episode:

Why most cyber spend starts with compliance, not attacks

How to invest ahead of platform shifts like AI and cloud

A three-part model for understanding cyber spending behavior

The risks of financial-only boards in technical startups

Lessons from building Trusteer, Transmit, and Picture Capital

What if your AI strategy is your business strategy?

In this episode, three top tech leaders share how they’re embedding AI not as a standalone initiative, but as a lever for enterprise transformation.

Mojgan Lefebvre (Travelers), Pawan Verma (Cencora), and Glenn Remoreras (Breakthru Beverage) reveal how they’ve partnered with boards, business units, and frontline teams to scale AI from proof of concept to performance.

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What does it really take to design for resilience in an AI-first world?

In this panel from the Metis Strategy Summit, Amtrak CDO Judith Apshago, GE Aerospace CIO David Burns, and Zoetis CDTO Keith Sarbaugh explore how resilient infrastructure is becoming the backbone of enterprise trust, uptime, and AI scalability.

Tune in to learn how these leaders are: