Michelle K. Lee

Why organisations work with Michelle K. Lee

• A rare three-sided view of AI: senior executive inside Google, Vice President of Amazon Web Services’ Machine Learning Solutions Lab, and a presidentially appointed agency head responsible for national IP and technology policy.
• Board-room credibility built on board service. Current director at MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so audiences hear a peer, not a presenter.
• AI governance grounded in the law and the operating reality. Founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies, advising on AI opportunity selection and the governance that goes with it.
• A track record of running AI at scale. Led a global AWS team that built machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines for clients across industries.
• Federal-scale execution. Ran the 10,000-person USPTO as the first woman to direct the agency, including its own AI strategy and digital modernisation.

Biography highlights

• Founder and CEO, Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and boards on AI opportunities and AI governance.
• Former Vice President, Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision, Amazon Web Services.
• Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman in the role.
• Former Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy at Google.
• Board director: The MIT Corporation, MassMutual, Unity Technologies. Co-founder of ChIPs.
• MIT-trained computer scientist (B.S., M.S., EECS) and Stanford Law graduate (J.D.). Featured by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, NPR, MIT Sloan Management Review, CES, SXSW, the World Knowledge Forum and the National Association of Corporate Directors.

Biography

Most boards have moved past the question of whether AI matters. The harder problem is which AI decisions belong with the board, which belong with the operators, and how to govern a technology whose capabilities and regulatory picture keep moving. Michelle K. Lee has worked that problem from every side of the table.

At Google she spent eight years inside one of the most consequential technology companies of the era, ending as Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy. At Amazon Web Services she ran the Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision businesses as a Vice President, leading a global team that helped clients across industries build machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines. Few AI advisors have actually shipped AI at that scale.

Between those roles she was appointed by the President to serve as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman to hold the position. She ran a 10,000-person agency, set its own AI strategy, and was the principal advisor to the President on intellectual property policy. That public-sector vantage point is what makes her boardroom counsel on AI regulation and governance unusually grounded.

Today she runs Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and their boards on where to deploy AI for material return and how to govern it credibly. She sits on the boards of MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so the people she advises know she is making the same decisions in her day job.

Key speaking topics

• AI strategy for the board and the executive team
• AI governance, ethics and regulation
• Generative AI: opportunities and operational risks
• Machine learning in customer experience and operations
• Digital transformation and innovation
• Intellectual property in the age of AI
• Director-level technology oversight

Ideal for

• Boards and audit, risk or technology committees framing AI oversight and governance.
• CEO, CIO, CTO, Chief AI Officer and General Counsel audiences moving AI from pilot to production.
• Senior leadership offsites on AI strategy, regulation and competitive positioning.
• Industry events convening regulated sectors (financial services, insurance, healthcare, public sector) navigating AI policy.

Audience outcomes

• A clearer view of where AI investment produces measurable return and where it does not.
• A practical board-level framework for AI governance, risk and accountability.
• A read on where AI regulation is heading and what it means for current strategy.
• A more honest conversation about generative AI: what to deploy, what to defer, and what to refuse.
• Confidence that the speaker has personally built, operated and regulated the technology under discussion.