TiEConPhiladelphia
TiE Philadelphia, Fostering EntrepreneurshipTemple University Fox School of Business, Institute for Business and Information Technology

TiE Philadelphia and Temple University present

Leading AI-Supported Transformation

From Experimentation to Enterprise Value

  • Thu · Dec 3, 2026
  • 4:00–8:30 PM
  • Center City, Philadelphia
Register now See the MasterClasses

About the event

Pilots are easy.
Value is hard.

Most organizations have tried AI. Far fewer have turned it into lasting business value. The technology is rarely what holds them back. Leadership is.

Leading AI-Supported Transformation brings Philadelphia’s business leaders, technologists, and founders together for one evening. You will hear from people who have led AI work inside real organizations. Then you will roll up your sleeves in a hands-on MasterClass taught by Fox School faculty. The night closes with a networking reception and a showcase of local AI startups.

Who should attend

  • Managers and directors who now own an AI initiative
  • Leaders in operations, marketing, finance, HR, and healthcare who want to put AI to work
  • Founders and technologists building AI products and teams
  • 01Talks from business leaders and technologists
  • 02Three hands-on AI MasterClasses
  • 03Local AI startup showcase
  • 04Networking reception
  • 05Light dinner and drinks

Agenda

The evening

  1. 4:00 PM

    Doors open and welcome reception

    Check in, grab a bite, and meet fellow attendees.

  2. Welcome

    Opening remarks from TiE Philadelphia and Temple University.

  3. Industry panel

    Leaders from Kyndryl, Google, and SAP, moderated by Himesh Bhise, on what it really takes to lead AI inside an organization.

  4. Fox MS in AI Management

    A short introduction to the new Fox program for leaders of AI-supported transformation.

  5. AI MasterClasses

    Three parallel hands-on sessions. Choose yours when you register.

  6. Networking reception and startup showcase

    Meet speakers, faculty, and local AI startups over light dinner and drinks.

  7. 8:30 PM

    Close

Detailed times will be posted soon.

Industry panel

Meet the panel

Leaders from Kyndryl, Google, and SAP in conversation with Himesh Bhise on leading AI-supported transformation.

Panelist

Kim Basile
Kim BasileChief Information Officer, Kyndryl

Kim Basile is Chief Information Officer at Kyndryl, where she focuses on continuous improvement and the employee experience. Before this role, she was Vice President of Performance Excellence for Kyndryl’s CIO organization and helped lead the company’s digital transformation. She joined Kyndryl in 2022 from Vanguard, where she headed Global Enterprise Security. Earlier, she spent 25 years at Lockheed Martin and Leidos in executive roles, including SVP and CISO of Leidos. Kim is a graduate of the Deloitte Next Generation CIO program and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Ursinus College.

Panelist

Matt Zelesko
Matt ZeleskoVP of Engineering, Site Reliability, Google

Matt Zelesko is Vice President of Engineering, Site Reliability at Google. His organization keeps Google’s products, its planet-spanning infrastructure, and Google Cloud Platform running dependably for billions of users and enterprise customers. Before Google, Matt spent 15 years at the intersection of media and technology, with a background in networking, distributed systems, and large-scale software. He held leadership roles at startups and large companies, including Joost, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Cornell University and a master’s in computer science from Stanford University.

Panelist

Andrew Solarz
Andrew SolarzSVP, COO & Head of GTM Strategy, SAP Americas

Andrew Solarz is SVP, Chief Operating Officer, and Head of Go-to-Market Strategy for SAP Americas. He oversees sales strategy, revenue operations, go-to-market execution, field sales support, and business planning and transformation across the region. Before this role, he was Industry Vice President for Consumer Products at SAP, leading enterprise sales and customer success for some of its largest global clients. He also led sales for SAP SuccessFactors, where his team ranked among the top performers worldwide. Andrew holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Moderator

Himesh Bhise
Himesh BhiseCEO, Board Director & Operating Advisor; former CEO, Synacor and Arabella Advisors

Himesh Bhise serves on the boards of technology companies VisitIQ and Intelity. He previously served as CEO of enterprise software company Synacor and business services firm Arabella, and held senior leadership roles at Comcast, Charter, AOL, and McKinsey & Co. He holds an MA in Economics from Temple University and an MBA from the Wharton School, and serves on Temple’s IBIT Advisory Board.

Fox School of Business

MS in AI Management

The new Fox MS in Artificial Intelligence Management prepares professionals to lead AI-supported transformation. You learn to evaluate emerging AI technologies, build the business case, and guide your organization from experimentation to enterprise value.

30Credits
100%Online
STEMDesignated
Fall 2027First cohort

Want to start sooner? The Graduate Certificate in AI Management begins in Spring 2027.

Academic Director

Konstantin Bauman
Konstantin BaumanAcademic Director, MS in AI Management · Associate Professor of Management Information Systems · AI Fellow, IBIT · Associate Editor, Information Systems Research
Explore the program

Hands-on sessions

AI MasterClasses

Three parallel sessions taught by Fox School faculty. Each one gives you a taste of the Fox MS in AI Management, and you leave with something you built. Bring a laptop.

MasterClass 01

From Idea to Impact: Build an AI Chatbot for Your Business

Amy Lavin
Amy LavinAssociate Professor of Practice, Management Information Systems

Chatbots are fast becoming the front door to products and services. Whether customers find them helpful or frustrating comes down to design. In this hands-on MasterClass, you will pick a real customer or employee need, map the conversation, and shape the bot’s voice and tone. Then you will build and test a working prototype, no coding required. You will leave with a prototype you can show your team and a practical method for designing conversations people actually want to have.

About the instructor

Dr Amy Lavin is an Associate Professor of Management Information Systems at the Fox School of Business at Temple University. At Fox, Amy teaches courses at the undergraduate, graduate and executive level on information systems and data analytics, user experience, business intelligence and artificial intelligence. Amy serves as a faculty fellow for both the Fox School and the Business Honors Program and has won several teaching awards in both face-to-face and online classes, including the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. In addition to teaching, Amy has written several case studies and articles around digital business models, online education, nonprofits and data analytics. Prior to joining Fox, Amy spent years implementing technology across North America, assisting clients with process analysis, redesign and deployment. Amy completed her Ed.D in education administration, from Temple University’s College of Education in 2019. She earned her Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Business Administration degrees from the Fox School. She also holds a direct marketing certificate from The Pennsylvania State University.

MasterClass 02

Beyond LLM: Train and Test Your First AI Model

Sezgin Ayabakan
Sezgin AyabakanAssociate Professor, Management Information Systems

AI is much more than ChatGPT and large language models. In this interactive MasterClass, you will see how AI systems learn from data to make the predictions and classifications behind everyday business decisions. After a short introduction, you will build your own image-classification model and test it on new examples. The exercise shows how models work. It also shows why data quality, model performance, real-world conditions, and business context decide whether a working model becomes a successful AI initiative. The session offers a hands-on preview of AI Fundamentals for Business Leaders, a course in the Fox MS in AI Management.

About the instructor

Sezgin Ayabakan is an Associate Professor of Management Information Systems and Harold Schaefer Fellow at Temple University’s Fox School of Business. He studies how AI-enabled tools shape clinical decisions, patient outcomes, and organizational performance, with recent work on conversational AI in mental health screening and on telehealth use. His research appears in MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and JAMIA. The World Health Organization cited his chatbot research, and federal rulemaking under the 21st Century Cures Act cited his work on health information sharing. He holds a Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Texas at Dallas.

MasterClass 03

Meet Your New Analyst: Turn Data into Insight with GenAI

Jaehwuen (Jae) Jung
Jaehwuen (Jae) JungAssociate Professor, Management Information Systems

Everyone has access to the same AI tools. So, what makes one person’s analysis better than another’s? In this hands-on MasterClass, you will work through a real data analysis challenge with a GenAI assistant, from the first question to a final decision. Along the way, you will experience firsthand where AI helps, where it quietly goes wrong, and what you need to bring to the table to get a better answer. You will learn what to consider before you trust an AI’s analysis, how to ask questions that lead to stronger results, and the way of thinking that turns AI from a fast answer machine into a real decision tool. No technical background is required. Just bring your curiosity and a laptop.

About the instructor

Jaehwuen (Jae) Jung is an Associate Professor of Management Information Systems at Temple University’s Fox School of Business. He studies how digital platforms and technology features change user behavior and business results, using large-scale field experiments, econometrics, and machine learning. His work appears in Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, and Management Science, and he received the 2024 ISS Gordon B. Davis Young Scholar Award. Before academia, Jae spent six and a half years as an IT application architect working on systems integration and legacy migration. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

Seats in each MasterClass are limited. You will choose one when you register.

Startup showcase

Meet Philadelphia’s AI startups

Local founders will show what they are building with AI during the networking reception. Stop by, see live demos, and talk with the teams behind them.

Lineup coming soon

We will announce the participating startups in the coming weeks.

Venue

Temple University Center City

In the heart of Center City, steps from City Hall and Suburban Station.

Get directions
Date
Thursday, December 3, 2026
Time
4:00–8:30 PM
Address
1515 Market Street, Room 202
Philadelphia, PA 19102
Food
Light dinner and drinks will be served

Presented by

TiE Philadelphia, Fostering EntrepreneurshipTemple University Fox School of Business, Institute for Business and Information Technology

Save your seat

Thursday, December 3 · 4:00–8:30 PM · Temple University Center City

Register now
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