Michael Podgortsev is Director of Data and AI Strategy, where he leads enterprise data architecture and AI strategy initiatives. Over a 15-year career, he has built and scaled data functions across startups he founded, mid-sized organizations, and large enterprises across multiple countries, giving him a uniquely cross-sector view of how data and AI systems succeed and fail at different organizational scales.

His work focuses on the structural gaps between how AI systems are trained and evaluated versus how they actually perform for diverse, real-world user populations; a theme he explores in depth in his forthcoming book, "The Average Trap: How Systems Built for Everyone Serve Almost No One."

Michael speaks three languages and has lived across Russia, Israel, and Canada, an experience that directly informs his perspective on designing systems that serve populations outside the statistical default.

He is based in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada.