Latin America’s financial centre and its busiest congress city. Dr Kate Barker speaks to the people making the decisions in both.
São Paulo is where Latin America decides. The banks, the exchange, the regional headquarters and the largest industrial groups on the continent all hold their leadership meetings in the same city, and it now hosts more international association events than any other city in Brazil — sixty-five in the latest count, fifth in the Americas and thirty-fifth in the world. An audience assembled in São Paulo is rarely there to be introduced to artificial intelligence. It is there because a decision is already in front of it.
Dr Kate Barker speaks to that audience about human judgement under machine influence: what changes when systems begin to produce conclusions rather than inputs, where authority quietly relocates inside an organisation, and how a leadership team keeps the capacity to challenge an answer it cannot fully trace. She is the world’s first Chief Futurist, a role held at NEOM, and a global executive advisor to heads of state, boards and chief executives. Her doctorate examined what generative artificial intelligence does to organisational trust, drawing on evidence from six thousand executive leaders.
For a São Paulo financial audience the sharpest finding in that research is a gap rather than a number. Eighty-two per cent of leaders report faster decisions since adopting artificial intelligence. Only fifty-four per cent believe those decisions are better. In an institution that is measured on the quality of its lending, pricing or allocation judgement, the difference between those two figures is the risk.
She is available in São Paulo for conference keynotes, financial services and technology leadership events, executive briefings, board sessions and closed leadership conversations, speaking in English, with simultaneous interpretation into Portuguese where an event requires it. Her practice draws on three decades of work, including previous roles as Vice President at SAP Asia Pacific and Partner in PwC’s Asia consulting practice, and more than five hundred keynotes delivered in thirty countries.
What still produces advantage when every competitor has bought the same systems. Built for an audience of banks, exchanges and industrial groups being compared against international peers.
Where a human being must remain accountable once systems can act across a whole process. The central question for regulated institutions in São Paulo, and the one supervisors are beginning to ask.
What an organisation gives away when it relies on capability it did not build. Directly relevant to regional headquarters running models, tools and platforms decided elsewhere.
A São Paulo audience does not need persuading that artificial intelligence matters to its business. What it needs is a defensible account of who is exercising judgement, on what evidence, and with what authority. That is what a session here is designed to leave behind.
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Dr Kate Barker is the world’s first Chief Futurist, a role held at NEOM, and a global executive advisor to heads of state, boards and chief executives. She is Adjunct Professor at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), UAE, holds a TIME100 AI Impact Award and is recognised by Thinkers50. Her São Paulo focus is artificial intelligence, human judgement and business performance.
A session built around executive judgement, board evidence or accountability for systems that act. Dr Barker brings a doctorate drawing on six thousand executive leaders, a master’s in organisational psychology and three decades of practice, and she uses two instruments in this work: the Executive Cognitive Advantage Index and the Board AI Index.
A conference keynote, a keynote with live audience question and answer, a fireside chat or moderated panel, an executive briefing or a closed board session, in person or virtually. Twelve weeks is the usual lead time.
Twelve weeks minimum lead time. Eighty bookings a year. Every enquiry is read personally.