Unstoppable: AI Strategist, Founder Wanjiku Kamau on Creating Systems To Lead Change
Wanjiku Kamau at a recent training..
Spend three minutes speaking with Wanjiku Kamau, founder, author, entrepreneur, and AI strategist and you believe everything and anything she has to offer. Because it is all backed up with knowledge and innovative insight.
“I’m unstoppable. AI is not the reason, but the tool that has helped me get here,” says Kamau, founder of Teal Voice, co-founder of Teal Bridge, author of Out of the Loop, Into the Algorithm: How I Finally Made Friends With AI, and speaker at Take The Lead’s Power Up Conference August 26.
“I’m unstoppable. AI is not the reason, but the tool that has helped me get here,” says Wanjiku Kamau, founder, author, AI strategist @takeleadwomen #AI #founder #tech”
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The former Google Cloud and Intel executive has the decades of expertise, drive, intelligence and strategies to change not only the use of AI for individuals and companies, but also to change the system itself.
As a Black woman, Kamau says, “AI has been a gatekeeper eliminator for me. So how do we use it to show up differently and drive the change?”
At Power Up “Audacity: Leadership for Change,” Kamau says, “I’m actually going to demonstrate my use of it to drive the team to put together governance, influence the leadership and drive change to help people so we do not take everything blindly. How do we use it to show up differently and drive the change in the world?”
“I’m going to demonstrate my use of AI to drive the team to put together governance, influence the leadership and drive change to help people so we do not take everything blindly,” says Wanjiku Kamau @takeleadwomen #PowerUp2026. ”
This is at a time in the growth of AI when the fear and anticipation is that AI is reorganizing the present and the future completely. All the more reason is all women—and men and diverse identities—need to be in on the creation of those monumental shifts.
Kamau, who also founded Teal Voice, a publishing, and podcast enterprise, is exactly on target. The lack of representation of diversity—particularly women of color—is recognized universally. That is true, as it remains stagnated in this current political and economic culture.
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “Timnit Gebru founded the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) in 2020—a bold leap toward unlocking AI’s power to benefit everyone, regardless of race, gender, class or other factors. While multiple definitions of AI exist, Gebru defines it is ‘a field that attempts to get machines to do something other than what's purely programmed into them at the onset.’”
RWJ reports, Gebru says that at one tech conference, “she was the sole Black woman among 8,500 participants. Those experiences led her to co-found Black in AI, which brings together academics, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and others to broaden inclusivity and embed equity into the evolving technological revolution.”
Kamau would later experience in her tech career many bouts of “the only.” But her powerful projections about the urgency to create a shift for a different future are also backed up by many others in tech.
According to Black Enterprise, “This report projects that roughly over 1 billion jobs could be altered by technology over the next decade, with AI and information processing impacting 86% of businesses by 2030.” Additionally, ‘Women of color in leadership roles are a driving force both in the United States and globally, according to Alicia Lyttle, CEO of the consultancy firm AI InnoVision. That is critical now as artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving into a mainstream tool in an essential way, changing how people work, run businesses, and embrace technology.”
“Report from @wef: over 1 billion jobs could be altered by technology over the next decade, with AI and information processing impacting 86% of businesses by 2030. WOC in AI leadership roles are a driving force both in US, globally: @BlackEnterprise #leadership #AI”
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Kamau is an integral part of that future and the efforts now to create the changes.
Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead, met with Kamau and immediately invited her to speak at the Power Up Conference this year. “AI systems can also serve as powerful tools to advance women’s leadership. By leveraging AI to analyze data, organizations can identify and address gender disparities in various aspects of their operations, such as hiring, promotions, and compensation. AI can also assist in identifying and challenging unconscious biases that may exist within organizations, paving the way for more inclusive and equitable work environments,” Feldt says.
This is why AI is a key topic and issue for strategizing at this year’s Power Up Conference.
“By leveraging #AI to analyze data, organizations can identify and address #gender disparities in various aspects of their operations, such as hiring, promotions, and compensation. AI can also assist in identifying and challenging unconscious #biases that may exist within organizations, paving the way for more inclusive and equitable work environments,” says Gloria Feldt, cofounder, president @takeleadwomen.”
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Born and raised in San Francisco, Kamau says her plan was to join the U.S. Air Force, then go to law school. But after graduating from San Diego State in 2002 with a degree in political science, and two years of law school, she realized that was not the right path for her.
She went to work at Siemens, and though she had not been focused on tech, it seemed an obvious choice. “I applied to Intel on Monster,” Kamau says, and was with Intel from 2005 to 2022.
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While there, “I realized I had aspirations. I am sitting in rooms and not having an MBA,” was a sticking point. “It hit me that everyone is not smarter than me; I had the frameworks, I just didn’t have the fundamentals.”
So she earned her executive MBA at Arizona State University in 2019. “That was amazing. It opened my eyes to the language of business,” Kamau said.
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Kamau writes, “At Intel, I managed multi-billion-dollar P&Ls across some of the world's most complex markets, bringing financial rigor and cross-functional leadership to high-stakes commercial operations.”
Still, she says, “New York was my Roman Empire. I wanted to relocate. What would it take to promote me and move there?” Kamau asked. So she applied to other companies, got offers, came back to her Intel boss, and he agreed to everything she asked for and she moved there for Intel in 2020.
At the end of 2021, she went to visit her mother in Kenya, and checked her LinkedIn where there was a message for her to apply to join Google. She took the job, and at Google Cloud, “I drove over $5B in annual revenue and led market expansion across Latin America, Canada, Northern Europe, and Africa — launching data centers, shaping cloud and AI strategy, and building growth playbooks that scaled globally,” Kamau writes.
Read more in Take The Lead on the future of work
In 2025, she was laid off at Google, and thinking of her next step, she took some time. “I went to Bali to learn to surf, then went to be with my niece at my brother’s,” Kamau said.
“I was gaining clarity and I knew I didn’t want to stay in Google, but I did want to stay in tech. I know I have to embrace AI, so I started that journey.“ With that, Teal Bridge was born, a strategic consultancy “that helps organizations move from AI confusion to AI confidence.”
The name of the company comes from the concept of bridge as connector, anchor, and teal is a bird that lives in land, air and water. “I’m not one size fit all, that’s me,” Kamau says.
Read more in Take The Lead on Black women entrepreneurs
A motivation for her to assist others in using AI is her professional experience. “I wish more women of color were using AI for eliminating barriers. We are not invited on the ski trip, or the dinners, or the golf trips. I can’t solve for all of that,” Kamau says.
“I wish more WOC were using AI for eliminating barriers. We are not invited on the ski trip, or the dinners, or the golf trips. AI can make the difference,” says Wanjiku Kamau, author, Founder @TealVoice”
“As artificial intelligence transforms industries and companies continue scaling back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, new data suggests Black women workers are facing the hardest consequences. According to reporting by AFROTECH, Black women have experienced significant job losses amid a broader wave of layoffs, workforce restructuring, and corporate DEI rollbacks. Black women’s unemployment rate climbed to 7.3% in 2026, nearly double the 3.7% unemployment rate reported among white women. Some reports indicate that between February and March alone, approximately 266,000 Black women lost jobs, representing a 2.5% decline in employment, according to Yahoo Finance,” Black Enterprise reports.
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“But I stepped into a role and I had to learn quickly and didn’t have the network, but I had Claude, Chat GPT, Perplexity and Gemini, that was my team. There are all these nuances and I learned to listen and use these tools to help us in spaces.”
Yes, you need to source the information from AI and fact-check, Kamau says, but that effort is minimal. And yes, women may not be replaced by AI completely new research shows, but women may not have been able to get placed in that job to start.
“One thing I realized is I try to push for how do we educate ourselves on the tools and how can we be in the room forming those tools?” So Kamau does one on one consulting and walks people through instructions.
“One thing I realized is I try to push for how do we educate ourselves on the tools and how can we be in the room forming those tools?” Wanjiku Kamau, #WOC #AI #techleadership ”
Kamau offers a poignant example. She was at a hair salon and the woman in the chair next to her was listening her talk about her work. She then explained to Kamau that she is 23, has two children, does not have a high school diploma and is having a very difficult time getting any work other than domestic work and childcare is a huge problem.
“We talked about getting a GED and AI showed a program in the city of New York for childcare, so she filled out the application and in 45 minutes, her hair was done and she submitted it.”
Kamau says she hears the woman got into the program and starts soon. That she says, was an example of the fearlessness it takes to us AI to make real change.
A recent panel of experts at a Word in Black conference agreed. “Black women are among the least likely to use AI tools. That’s despite the fact that AI-powered applicant-tracking systems are quietly filtering out their job applications before a human ever sees their resumes.” The panelists “suggested that Black women entrepreneurs, who have long lacked equitable access to capital, can now use AI to build faster and leaner than ever before.”
“Black women #entrepreneurs, who have long lacked equitable access to capital, can now use AI to build faster and leaner than ever before,” reports @WordinBlack ”
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Kamau is on board and working to achieve those goals.
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“I think if we can get to a tipping point of people—women and women of color at the forefront—we need to plug in ourselves to be in the spaces of ethics, governance in companies, nations, at the U.N. and more,” Kamau says.
“In the race with AI, the time is now to see us stand up and go on where we want to drive the change.”
“Wanjiku Kamau: “In the race with AI, the time is now to see us stand up and go on where we want to drive the change.” @takeleadwomen #leadership #AI #change”
Take The Lead’s Power Up Conference 2026, Audacity: Leadership In Action, features a diverse group of speakers and experts speaking on the importance of inclusive leadership and strategies to solve systemic and historical barriers across all sectors. Wanjiku Kamau is on the panel, The Human Advantage: AI Risks, Representation & Real Solutions, that addresses how to build confidence with emerging technology and shape the future of work instead of getting left behind by it. Learn more about other speakers and panels and register here.
