How Sponsorship, Not Mentorship, Will Define the Next Era of AI Leadership | The Give to Gain Leadership Mindset
March 8, 2026
Welcome to an episode of The Beyond Possible Dialogues. Our host, Kavitha Krishnan, is joined by Samrah Khan, Director of North America System Integrator Partnerships at Google Cloud, to unpack why sponsorship, not mentorship, is the missing link in accelerating women into AI leadership, and how enterprise leaders can operationalize this shift into measurable competitive advantage.
Welcome to an episode of The Beyond Possible Dialogues. Our host, Kavitha Krishnan, is joined by Samrah Khan, Director of North America System Integrator Partnerships at Google Cloud, to unpack why sponsorship, not mentorship, is the missing link in accelerating women into AI leadership, and how enterprise leaders can operationalize this shift into measurable competitive advantage.
What You’ll Learn:=
- The structural challenges women still face in AI leadership
- How organizations can build sustainable pipelines of women leaders in AI
- Why women are the natural fit for prompt engineering and AI strategy roles
Samrah Khan is the Director of North America System Integrator Partnerships at Google Cloud, where she drives co-innovation and strategic partnerships at the intersection of enterprise AI adoption and ecosystem development. With vast expertise in AI leadership development and talent strategy, Samrah champions the shift from mentorship to active sponsorship as the catalyst for accelerating women into executive roles in technology.
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