Executive Tech Insights: A Free Monthly Webinar Series on How AI Is Changing the Way Leaders Work
- 5 minutes
- Published: 10/19/2026
Every function in the business world is now working out what AI changes and what it doesn’t. Marketing, project management, finance, cybersecurity, risk, and innovation each face a different version of the same question, and the answers are still being written.
Executive Tech Insights is a free monthly webinar series from Wake Forest Executive Education and the School of Professional Studies. Each session is led by the Academic Director of one of our technology-focused master’s degrees, who brings a working knowledge of their field and a practical question leaders are facing now.
What to expect
Each session runs one hour, at noon Eastern on the first Tuesday of the month.
- Welcome A brief introduction to the featured master’s degree and to Wake Forest Executive Education, including how we support professionals and their organizations.
- Workshop The academic director delivers a condensed executive education session on a topic from their field, built to leave you with a tool, framework, or set of questions you can use the next day.
- Q&A Time to pose your own questions to the Academic Director!
AI is the common thread across all six sessions. You are welcome to attend one session or all of them, depending on what is most relevant to your role.
Why attend
Most AI coverage tells you what is possible. These sessions focus on what to do about it: where AI creates an advantage in your function, where it introduces new risk, and what leaders need to decide for themselves rather than hand off. The sessions are free, you will hear directly from the faculty who teach this material, and registration only takes a minute.
The sessions
November 3 | From Search Engines to Answer Engines: Marketing When AI Finds You First
with Ged King, Academic Director, Master of Digital Marketing and AI, Master of Communications
Eighty-seven percent of marketers now use generative AI in their regular workflows, which means the tools themselves no longer create an advantage. At the same time, AI chatbots are beginning to displace search and social as the way customers discover brands. This session examines what that shift means for marketing strategy, from customer insight to campaign execution. You will leave with a clearer picture of where AI creates real marketing advantage and what your team should be building toward now.
December 1 | Your AI Has Biases. So Do You: What to Automate, What to Own
with Neil Littell, Academic Director, Master of Project Management, Master of Engineering Management
For project leaders, the question is no longer whether to use AI but which work to hand off and which to keep. AI does not remove bias from project work. It relocates it into the data, the prompts, and our instinct to trust a confident answer. This session begins with a look at how AI actually works for AI-augmented project leaders, then turns to recent research on the bias blind spots we all carry, where those biases hide, and what leaders can do to limit their effect.
February 2 | Beyond the Pilot: Turning AI Experiments into Enterprise Innovation
with Carm Taglienti, Academic Director, Master of AI Strategy and Innovation
Most organizations have run AI pilots. Far fewer have turned them into results, and many are stalling in the middle of AI maturity as AI is increasingly judged on proof rather than promise. This session examines why pilots stall, how organizations move from experimentation to structured innovation, and the leadership capabilities that shift requires. If your organization has AI activity but not yet AI impact, this session is for you.
March 2 | Reporting the Past vs. Shaping What’s Next: AI in Finance
with Mohamed Desoky, Academic Director, Master of Financial Technology and Analytics
AI adoption in finance organizations more than doubled in a single year, from 34 percent to 72 percent, with forecasting and risk management among the leading applications. Adoption alone does not create value, though. This session explores how AI and financial technology are moving finance from explaining what happened to shaping what happens next, and where that shift can produce measurable gains in decision quality, efficiency, risk management, and revenue. You will also consider what finance leaders need to get right to turn adoption into business impact.
April 6 | When Seeing Is No Longer Believing: Deepfakes and the New Executive Threat
with Brandon Sloane, Academic Director, Master of Cybersecurity Leadership
AI-generated voices and video can now convincingly impersonate executives, vendors, and partners, authorizing payments and requesting sensitive data. The most sophisticated attacks no longer target systems. They target people, and executives are the highest-value targets. This session covers what leaders, not just security teams, need to understand about AI-driven threats and how to build a verification culture that holds up when seeing is no longer believing.
May 4 | Governing the People and Institutions: Why AI Oversight Is Now a Core Risk Discipline
with Joseph Atatsi, Academic Director, Master of Enterprise Risk Management
AI has become one of the defining governance issues of 2027, and surveys of directors consistently rank it among the top risks they feel least prepared to oversee. The problem is not the technology alone. Employees are adopting tools faster than policies can follow, vendors are embedding AI into services without clear disclosure, and accountability often sits nowhere in particular. This session examines how AI is reshaping enterprise risk and what a modern framework needs to address, from shadow AI and third-party exposure to who owns decisions, who answers when things go wrong, and how the board gets the visibility it needs. You will leave with a practical view of what board-ready AI governance looks like.
About the School of Professional Studies
At the Wake Forest School of Professional Studies, we believe working professionals deserve serious academic programs that meet them exactly where they are – in life, in career, and in geography. Our 100% online, asynchronous Masters Degrees offer the freedom to choose when you learn and how you learn while still maintaining your full-time career velocity. Located at the Wake Forest Charlotte Campus at The Pearl, our curriculum is built where industry converges. While you enjoy the flexibility of online learning, you are directly connected to a vibrant, physical network. So when you log in, you’re also planting your flag in a world-class community.
About Wake Forest Executive Education
Wake Forest Executive Education combines academic rigor with real-world application to help professionals lead at a higher level. Our non-credit certificate programs, short courses, workshops, and custom programs deliver practical, relevant business insights for both individuals and companies. Our goal is to equip participants with the tools and tactics to grow as a strategic leader. Online and in-person options fit your schedule while preparing you to lead through complexity and build strong teams.
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