This is an invite-only event. For more information, please contact info@innovateucla.org

About Our Sponsors

Platinum Sponsor

For more than 25 years, IMPEX Technologies has helped organizations navigate technology transformation and modernize their IT environments. What began as a systems integration company has evolved into a trusted technology partner serving Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, healthcare providers, and educational institutions across the country.

Today, IMPEX delivers end-to-end solutions across infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity, data, and managed services. As trusted advisors and resident experts, the team guides clients with integrity through every stage of modernization. By combining deep technical expertise with industry-leading technology partners, IMPEX helps organizations reduce complexity, improve operational efficiency, and build secure, future-ready IT environments that support long-term growth.

Networking Sponsor

Starburst delivers enterprise intelligence at scale by giving organizations secure, governed access to distributed data across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. Built on open standards with Trino and Apache Iceberg, Starburst helps enterprises power AI and analytics with complete, trusted data without unnecessary consolidation or vendor lock-in. Learn more at starburst.ai.

“The Nonlinear Career: Thriving in the Age of Agentic Work” with Nadia Hansen, Digital Transformative Executive, Global Public Sector at Salesforce.

The career ladder is dead — and AI just finished the job. For decades, professional advice assumed a straight line: pick a lane, climb it, retire from it. But as agentic AI reshapes what “a job” even means, the people who thrive won’t be the ones who climbed the highest — they’ll be the ones who moved the smartest.

This session is for anyone standing in the middle of a pivot: students entering a job market that barely resembles the one their parents knew, professionals watching their industries get rewritten by AI, and founders building companies with tools that didn’t exist two years ago. Drawing on a career that moved from art school to computer science to 12+ years as a public-sector technology executive to founder and AI strategist, this talk makes the case that nonlinear paths aren’t a liability to explain away — they’re the actual training ground for adaptability, the one skill AI can’t replace.

Attendees will leave with a practical framework for auditing their own skills against where the job market is actually heading, reframing “gaps” and pivots as assets on a resume or in an interview, and building the kind of career resilience that doesn’t depend on any single job title staying static.

About Speaker

Nadia Hansen is a keynote speaker and AI strategist who helps executives and organizations navigate the future of work. She serves as Global GTM AI Strategist at Salesforce, focusing on the public sector, and is adjunct faculty at UNLV and Nevada State University. Before joining the private sector, she served as CIO of Clark County, Nevada, overseeing a $300M+ technology portfolio serving 2.3 million residents. She’s been recognized as a Top 50 AI Leader, spoken at CES 2026 and Dreamforce, and been featured in Inc. Magazine. She also publishes Hack to the Future, a newsletter reaching 3,400+ leaders on AI and the future of work.

Join us for the Innovate@UCLA 2026 Executive Leadership Awards, where we’ll explore “Workforce of the Future: Preparing for the Jobs, Skills, and Leaders of Tomorrow.”

Our signature event will take place on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, from 5:00 to 9:00 PM at UCLA Luskin Conference Center.

Artificial intelligence, automation, and rapid technological change are transforming how organizations operate and what they need from the next generation of talent. As AI is reshaping roles across every industry, universities are reimagining how they prepare the next generation of talent, and organizations are racing to build workforces that don’t yet exist. This year’s program brings together the leaders navigating these shifts – and shaping what comes next.

We’re pleased to welcome Kevin Popović – author, entrepreneur, and innovation strategist – as our keynote speaker. Drawing on his work at the intersection of creativity, technology, and workforce development, Kevin will set the stage for an evening of candid conversation about where we’re headed and how leaders can get there first.

He’ll be joined by a distinguished panel of academic and industry executives representing both the supply and demand sides of this challenge: the educators preparing tomorrow’s workforce, and the employers and technology leaders defining what that workforce will need to do.

We will also recognize this year’s Executive Leadership Award recipients – outstanding leaders across Southern California who drive innovation, transformation, and meaningful impact in their organizations and communities. Nominations are now open. We encourage you to nominate a deserving colleague or peer: Submit Your Nomination.

As we’ve done for nearly four decades, we will bring you perspectives you won’t find anywhere else – grounded in real experience and shaped by the rapid change transforming our economy and our organizations.

Join us for an evening of recognition, inspiration, and the dialogue that makes our annual gala the premier gathering for Southern California’s technology and business leaders.

More details to follow soon.

About Innovate@UCLA Executive Leadership Awards

The Innovate@UCLA Executive Leadership Award (ELA) recognizes the exceptional creation of value to achieve a company’s vision via the application of innovative, forward-thinking, and disruptive technologies and operating models.