Nicholas Hanges
CFO, Five Star Group of Companies
“The whole presentation sort of spoke to me, and it gave me some confidence.”
Keynote speaker on AI adoption for operators
Galina FendikevichThe antidote to AI hype.
You're already behind.AI will do your job.One prompt, job done.Agentic everything.
Bring the operator's view of AI adoption to the people in the storm doing the work. Your audience leaves with a plan they can run tomorrow.
In the audience's words
“It felt really good to know that somebody else came at it from an operator perspective as opposed to the AI company.”
SCCONF · Supply Chain Conference 2026AI adoption, supply chain and operations
Where Galina has spoken
Impact
What changed after Supply Chain Conference 2026?
Two attendees, in their own words.
Mardaasa Addisu
National Supply Chain Manager, Airgas
“Galina had put together a five step plan to work on your next AI project, which I'm going to utilize for some of my company's projects.”
Another room, the same real questions
At the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals event, the audience leaned in.
A talk on AI sparked engaged, clarifying questions from attendees. The conversation echoed the need Nicholas and Mardaasa described: less abstraction, more clarity about how to put technology to work.
Audience voice · Council event
Keith · Audience voice
Who it's for
Built for people responsible for making change work.
For the people in your room:
- Executive leadership teams
- Operations leaders
- Transformation and innovation leaders
- Technology leaders
- Managers and teams adopting new tools
They're asking questions like:
“Where do we start?”
“How much should we invest before we know what works?”
“How do we get our people to actually use it?”
“What should we automate, and what should remain human?”
“How do we experiment without creating chaos?”
“How do we keep moving when the technology will be different again six months from now?”
The problem
AI isn't the hard part. Making it work inside a business is.
The noise
“You're behind.”
Urgency is often a sales tactic. People need permission to start from where they are, not another reason to panic.
The trap
Tool first. Problem later.
A shiny tool or an ambitious request can stall in the IT queue. Map the workflow and name the outcome first; then choose the right technology.
The work
Adoption is human.
A leadership email isn't enough. Build peer-to-peer practice, make space for experiments, and decide what stays human before automating the rest.
The reframe
You don't need to predict what comes next.
You need a better way to respond.
Most conversations about AI begin with the technology. Galina begins with the work, informed by ongoing conversations with the people adopting it.
Instead of “What can AI do?”, ask “What problem are we trying to solve?”
AI is an enablement strategy, not a replacement strategy. Start with one headache, learn together, and keep human judgment where it matters.
The research behind the talk
Not a keynote frozen in time.
Through Artificial Reality, Galina interviews business owners, executives and operators who are adopting AI inside their organizations now.
She asks what's working, what's not and what they wish existed. Their experiences and challenges shape the stories, examples and practical questions she brings to the stage. Audiences hear what businesses are learning on the ground, not just what vendors promise.
Signature keynote
How to Keep Up When Technology Rewrites the Rules
A practical keynote for leaders and teams navigating AI, automation and constant technological change.
Discuss your eventGalina takes audiences beyond the black-box dream of AI and into the real-world challenges of adoption and deployment. The stories come from operators who are using the technology now, not hypothetical futures.
Watch the full talk
The audience transformation
From overwhelmed by change to equipped to act.
Your audience arrives thinking...They leave thinking...
“We're already behind.”
“We know where to begin.”
“We need a huge AI strategy.”
“We can start with one meaningful problem.”
“Our people aren't ready.”
“Our people can become part of the solution.”
“We need to know where AI is going.”
“We need a way to respond as it changes.”
“We should automate everything we can.”
“We can decide deliberately what stays human.”
What the audience takes away
The realities of AI, done the right way.
The aim is not for the audience to say “I learned something interesting about AI.” It's for them to say “I understand how to move my organization forward now.”
Audiences leave equipped to:
- Find the right place to start by identifying problems worth solving before selecting technology.
- Turn experimentation into adoption by making technological change tangible and relevant to the people doing the work.
- Move without waiting for certainty through small, deliberate experiments that create learning and momentum.
- Distinguish between human, AI-assisted and automated work so technology augments judgment rather than replacing it indiscriminately.
- Build adoption from inside the organization by giving employees permission and tools to improve the workflows they understand best.
- Apply a repeatable five-step framework to their next AI or technology initiative.
Why this perspective is different
Not another view from Silicon Valley.
A great deal of the conversation about AI comes from the companies building it.
Galina's work sits on the other side: What happens when technology meets the people expected to actually use it?
Her career has put her repeatedly at that intersection, from machine learning on Wall Street, to building emerging-technology products, to leading U.S. go-to-market for an AI unicorn, to interviewing executives and business owners about how AI is actually performing inside their organizations.
Today, through Artificial Reality, she documents what operators are actually experiencing: the tools earning their place, the implementations failing to deliver, the work people want AI to solve, and the human problems technology alone can't fix.
Her career has been spent translating emerging technology into real-world adoption. That is the perspective she brings to the stage.
On stage, she turns those lessons into practical frameworks organizations can use to navigate technological change with more clarity, agency and confidence.
Curious by nature, Galina speed runs life and keeps her passport ready for the next conversation.
At a glance
Wall Street Machine Learning → Tech Exit to Niantic → U.S. GTM at an AI Unicorn → Founder, Artificial Reality
Speaker reel
Speaking formats
The right shape for your room.
20–45 minutes
Conference keynote
Operator stories, a practical framework and one action people can take back to work.
Leadership & teams
Internal AI Kickoff
For leadership teams, upskilling programs, or departments trying to get people comfortable and moving.
Working session
Workshop: Remove the One Thing You Dread
A working session where attendees map one real workflow and leave with a clearer AI request, business case, or experiment.