José Pires serves as the Global Excellence & Innovation (E&I) Leader for Andeavor Corporation, where he oversees the global identification, prioritization and execution of mission critical business improvements and innovations that add value to the company, business partners and external clients in multiple markets. Prior to his current role, Pires held Excellence and Innovation leadership positions in large, global companies in the electronics (Sony), semiconductor (Cymer-ASML), food (Nestlé) and infrastructure (Black & Veatch) industries. Throughout his career, Pires developed and refined E&I as an award winning program for innovation, leadership development, strategy execution and value creation globally. Pires is an advisory board leader and keynote speaker for several global conferences on innovation, operational excellence, leadership development, strategy execution, business transformation, customer engagement and growth acceleration. He holds a Bachelor in Engineering Physics from the University of Kansas and a Master in Business Administration focused in Investment Banking and Entrepreneurship from the University of San Diego.

My mission is to spark 100 million leaders in the next 10 years. How can I possibly reach so many people in so little time? More specifically, how can we train that many people in that amount of time? Recently we've seen breakthroughs in AI-powered chatbots designed to change thought patterns and behaviors. These include Woebot and Wysa for mental health and ParentSpark for parenting skills.

Traditional approaches to leadership development no longer meet the needs of organizations or individuals. There are three: (1) Organizations, which pay for leadership development, don't always benefit as much as individual learners do. A growing assortment of online courses, social platforms, and learning tools from both traditional providers and upstarts is helping to close the gaps. The need for leadership development has never been more urgent. Companies of all sorts realize that to survive in today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, they need leadership skills and organizational capabilities different from those that helped them succeed in the past. There is also a growing recognition that leadership development should not be restricted to the few who are in or close to the C-suite. With the proliferation of collaborative problem-solving platforms and digital "adhocracies" that emphasize individual initiative, employees across the board are increasingly expected to make consequential decisions that align with corporate strategy and culture.

My mission is to spark 100 million leaders in the next ten years. How can I possibly reach so many people in so little time? More specifically, how can we train that many people in that amount of time? Recently we've seen breakthroughs in AI-powered chatbots designed to change thought patterns and behaviors. These include Woebot and Wysa for mental health and ParentSpark for parenting skills. So I naively set off on my hero's quest to create and train "Coach Amanda", the world's first AI-powered executive coach.

Las Vegas, HR Technology Conference & Expo #HRTech -- LEADx, Inc., the world's leading Conversational Learning (CL) platform for leadership enablement, today launched LEADx Coach Amanda, an executive coach virtual assistant powered by IBM Watson Assistant. "We believe every manager deserves a coach," said Kevin Kruse, LEADx founder and CEO. "Traditional leadership development, based on workshops and online tutorials, has long failed enterprises and managers alike. Executive coaches work well, but due to their cost they are ironically reserved for the leaders who have the most experience. But now, we've tapped the power of AI to democratize leadership development."