Sina Kahen
Most organisations have run AI pilots. Very few have converted them into operating performance. The gap is no longer about technical capability; it is about strategy, governance, sourcing decisions, and the readiness of the people who have to use the systems every day.
Sina Kahen is an AI strategist, author and Imperial Business School lecturer who helps organisations turn generative AI from pilot exercises into real operating advantage.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Sina Kahen
- He has shipped a regulated, complex technology product into a sceptical market. Commercialising Celito, named publicly as the UK’s first orthopaedic robot, gives him operator credibility that very few AI speakers carry.
- He runs a generative AI company today. VAICE, where he is co-founder and CEO, builds workplace productivity software, which means his views on enterprise AI come from active build decisions, not commentary.
- His book “The Promised Land of AI” gives leaders a usable strategic playbook for AI adoption, structured around use-case discovery, data readiness, and the build, buy or partner question that most boards stall on.
- He teaches AI strategy at Imperial College Business School, so the material is tested against MBA cohorts and senior executives every term, not assembled for the stage.
- He brings a working language for ethics, philosophy and human judgement in AI, drawing on his published philosophical work, without drifting into abstraction that leaves an operating team with nothing to do on Monday.
Biography highlights
- MBA, Imperial College Business School; degree in Biomedical Sciences
- Guest Lecturer in AI, healthcare and corporate innovation, Imperial College Business School
- Co-founder and CEO, VAICE, building generative AI software for workplace productivity
- Former Innovation Business Manager at DeSoutter Medical; led commercialisation of Celito, publicly described as the UK’s first orthopaedic robot
- Author of “The Promised Land of AI: A Practical Guide to AI for Business” and “Brief Insights on Medical Robotics”
- Engagements and clients include Google, Amazon, BBC, O2, Shell, Imperial College, InterSystems, Juniper Networks, Ipsen Pharma and Novateur Ventures
Biography
Celito was the UK’s first orthopaedic robot. Sina Kahen, then Innovation Business Manager at DeSoutter Medical, was the person responsible for bringing it through commercialisation into operating theatres. That work, taking a regulated, high-stakes technology from concept into the hands of surgeons, is the experience he now applies to a different problem: enterprise adoption of generative AI.
The current vehicle for that work is VAICE, a company he co-founded and runs as CEO, building generative AI software for workplace productivity. Around it sits his book “The Promised Land of AI: A Practical Guide to AI for Business”, a Guest Lectureship at Imperial College Business School, and engagements with organisations including Google, Amazon, BBC, O2, Shell, InterSystems and Ipsen Pharma.
The argument running through all of it is operational. Most companies have proved AI can do something useful. The harder questions, which buyers are now ready to confront, are about strategy: which use cases actually compound, whether to build, buy or partner, how to make data and people ready, and how to govern decisions that cannot be fully explained. Kahen has trained as a Biomedical Scientist and holds an MBA from Imperial, which is one reason his framing of these questions feels closer to medicine than marketing: rigorous about evidence, blunt about what is not yet known.
He is also the author of several books on Jewish philosophy, and that interest shows up in the AI work as a refusal to let the human and ethical questions float free of operating practice. Boards do not need another AI ethics policy. They need a way to make defensible AI decisions inside their existing governance, and to take their workforce with them. That is the territory Kahen occupies.
Key speaking topics
- Generative AI strategy for enterprise
- AI adoption and operating performance
- AI in healthcare and life sciences
- Responsible AI and AI governance
- Build, buy or partner decisions in AI sourcing
- Innovation and intrapreneurship inside large organisations
- Philosophy, ethics and the human side of AI
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees commissioning enterprise-wide AI strategy
- CIOs, CTOs, Chief Data Officers and Chief AI Officers translating pilots into operating systems
- Healthcare and life sciences leadership confronting AI, robotics and regulated innovation
- Heads of Innovation and transformation leads structuring AI portfolios across business units
Audience outcomes
- A working framework for moving AI from pilot into measurable operating performance
- A clearer view on when to build, buy or partner for AI capability
- Sharper questions to ask of internal teams and external vendors on data readiness, governance and use-case selection
- A practical position on AI ethics that holds up inside real operating decisions, not slide decks
- Language and reference points senior leaders can use to bring the rest of the organisation with them
Talks
A tailored working session that helps a leadership team find the AI use cases that genuinely apply to their own company and industry, rather than generic ones.
Key takeaways:
- A method for surfacing and filtering AI use cases specific to the organisation’s operations and sector
- A clear view on which candidate projects are worth resourcing and which are distractions
- The data, talent and governance conditions a use case needs before it can move past the pilot stage
A talk on how AI and robotics are changing diagnostics, patient care and clinical workflows, drawing on his work commercialising the UK’s first orthopaedic robot.
Key takeaways:
- Where AI is genuinely changing healthcare economics and clinical practice, beyond the headlines
- What regulated, high-stakes environments teach every sector about deploying AI responsibly
- How to make adoption decisions where the cost of error is measured in patient outcomes
A talk on the ethical questions AI forces on decision-makers, and how to hold empirical rigour and moral responsibility together.
Key takeaways:
- The ethical questions leaders need to answer before scaling AI into core decisions
- How AI reshapes human decision-making, and where human judgement must stay in the loop
- A way to connect scientific evidence with the moral choices that AI deployment demands
A talk on turning AI, IoT and robotics into practical gains in efficiency and competitive position.
Key takeaways:
- How emerging technologies translate into operational efficiency rather than novelty
- Where AI, IoT and robotics create defensible competitive advantage for an organisation
- Practical ways to adopt new technology without stalling on complexity
A talk on holding onto human meaning and judgement as technology takes a larger role in work and life.
Key takeaways:
- How to keep human-centric values in view while pursuing technological progress
- Where meaning and judgement are most at risk of erosion as automation expands
- What a human-centred approach to technology looks like in practice for leaders and teams
A talk on how large organisations create the conditions for internal innovation and put new technology to work for growth.
Key takeaways:
- How to build intrapreneurial capability inside an established corporate structure
- Where large organisations most often block their own innovation, and how to remove those blocks
- How to direct emerging technology towards growth rather than isolated experiments