Tim Sanders
Most enterprises have run AI pilots. Far fewer have moved AI into the operating fabric of how decisions are made, deals get done, and software gets bought. The gap is not technology. It is a leadership problem about which workflows to redesign, which vendors actually deliver, and how to read the buyer signals coming back through the data.
Tim Sanders helps senior leaders convert AI hype into operating advantage, drawing on G2’s SaaS buyer data and Harvard research to show what is working inside real enterprises.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Tim Sanders
- He sits inside G2’s data on how millions of business buyers actually evaluate and adopt software, which gives his AI commentary an evidence base most keynote voices do not have.
- His Harvard Business School Digital Data Design Institute fellowship pairs that operator view with formal research on AI and digital innovation, so the argument lands with both the CIO and the CFO.
- He has run the playbook before: as Yahoo!’s Chief Solutions Officer through the original platform shift, and at Upwork on digital transformation and talent strategy, he has lived the gap between platform promise and operating reality.
- Five books, including the New York Times bestsellers “Love Is the Killer App” and “The Likeability Factor,” give him a thirty-year track record of translating shifts in how technology changes commercial behaviour into language operators can use.
- “Dealstorming” gives sales and revenue audiences a structured method for unsticking high-value deals, named in case studies at Yahoo!, CareerBuilder, Regus, and Conde Nast.
Biography highlights
- Chief Innovation Officer at G2, the world’s largest software marketplace
- Executive Fellow, Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard Business School
- Former Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! and head of Yahoo’s in-house think tank
- Former Vice President of Client Strategy at Upwork
- Author of five business books, including New York Times bestsellers “Love Is the Killer App” and “The Likeability Factor”
- Author of “Dealstorming,” with referenced sales work at Yahoo!, CareerBuilder, Regus, and Conde Nast
Biography
The hard problem inside most AI programmes is no longer the model. It is the operating decision: which workflows to rebuild, which software to back, which vendors are quietly underdelivering. Tim Sanders works on exactly that question, with two unusual vantage points behind him.
The first is G2, where he is Chief Innovation Officer. G2 holds the largest first-party dataset on how business buyers evaluate software, which gives him a live read on what is actually being bought, abandoned, and renewed across the SaaS and AI stack. The second is Harvard Business School’s Digital Data Design Institute, where he is an Executive Fellow translating research on AI and digital innovation into material business leaders can act on.
Earlier in his career, he was Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! during the original web platform shift and led its internal think tank. He went on to serve as Vice President of Client Strategy at Upwork, working with enterprises on digital transformation and the talent side of technology change. That sequence of operator roles is what gives his keynote work its bite: he has been the executive on the receiving end of the slide that says “AI will change everything.”
He has also written through every one of these shifts. “Love Is the Killer App” and “The Likeability Factor” became New York Times bestsellers and remain mainstays of corporate reading lists. “Dealstorming” is used by sales organisations as a structured method for breaking through high-value deal blockers, with named work at companies including CareerBuilder, Regus, and Conde Nast.
Key speaking topics
- AI adoption and return on AI for the enterprise
- Software buying behaviour and the SaaS market
- Sales strategy and revenue collaboration
- Customer experience and modern buyer behaviour
- Digital transformation and the future of work
- Leadership in technology-driven organisations
Ideal for
- CEOs, CIOs, CDOs, and Chief AI Officers running enterprise AI programmes
- CROs, CCOs, and sales leadership teams under pressure on revenue productivity
- Boards and ExCo sessions weighing AI capital allocation and software portfolio decisions
- SaaS, technology, and professional services organisations rethinking go-to-market in an AI buyer environment
Audience outcomes
- A clear read on where enterprise AI adoption actually is, based on first-party SaaS buyer data rather than vendor narrative
- A sharper view of which AI use cases are creating measurable operating advantage and which are stuck in pilot
- Practical moves for sales and revenue teams to work with, not against, an AI-augmented buyer
- A repeatable method for breaking through stalled high-value deals through cross-functional collaboration
- Renewed confidence at the leadership level that AI strategy is a decision domain, not a technology domain