Announcement Detail

AI Workshop: Do you have your bold strategy for Success with AI?
Date: February 4, 2026
Time: 9 am - 10:30 am PST
Location: Virtual
A strategic AI webinar exploring how bold strategy, not tools alone, drives real business value, growth, and long-term impact.
Ticket price:
- Free for WCS Members
- $15 for Non-Members
- Interested in becoming a member? Please learn more and apply here
Please note: this event will be recorded.
As organizations rapidly deploy AI across products, marketing, and operations, many are discovering a hard truth: technology alone does not create value—strategy does. Despite massive investment, studies from MIT and Wharton show that only a small percentage of AI initiatives deliver meaningful results. At a time when AI adoption is accelerating across cleantech and sustainability sectors, leaders must rethink how strategy, decision-making, and value creation guide responsible and successful AI use.
This interactive online seminar will help participants understand why strategy becomes even more critical as AI scales across organizations. Through guided discussion and practical exercises, attendees will learn how to shift between strategic and operational thinking, evaluate AI use cases from a customer and revenue-impact perspective, and recognize when not to apply AI. Participants will walk away with tools to validate AI-driven strategies, cultivate a value-creation mindset, and align AI investments with long-term business, sustainability, and personal career goals.
Speakers:
Darlene Crane
President and Chief Value Creator, The CraneWorks
Darlene Crane, President, The CraneWorks is a growth strategist and implementation orchestrator. She brings multi-disciplinary perspectives to help clients achieve their purpose, growth goals, target performance levels, and thoughtful application of technology. She brings decades of experience in line positions as a Group Product Manager and strategist and externally as a senior IT program consultant leading total system upgrades, mergers, and economic development planning. Her superpower is helping teams envision, plan and complete valuable strategic initiatives.
Darlene was Adjunct Faculty in an MBA program for over a decade. She co-authored a textbook, Executive Accountability, Creating the Environment for Business Value from Technology. The content provides practical approaches and a holistic framework for leadership and decisions for strategic initiatives driven by technology.
She has deep expertise in leading transformational change and projects for revenue growth, mergers, and IT enterprise upgrades. Her passion is advising distinctive business owners in developing their value creation mindset to grow and sustain their businesses.
Gerardo Garcia-Jurado
Founder and Emmy Award Winning Creative Director, eemageen LLC
As a seasoned Creative Consultant, Gerardo is passionate about transforming brand strategies and enhancing consumer engagement through creative excellence and strategic insight. At eemagen LLC, I lead innovative social, email, web, and OOH marketing campaigns for diverse clients, including top CPG and wine brands. By integrating multi channel strategies with high-end design, he helped significantly improve brand resonance and consumer loyalty.
He thrives on fostering high-performing teams, emphasizing empathy, respect, and trust to inspire creativity and drive success. His multicultural perspective, shaped by building a successful business in my natal Mexico City and enriched by extensive travels, along with fluency in Spanish, enables him to connect deeply with diverse audiences, ensuring culturally resonant and impactful brand messaging.
As President of the AMA San Francisco Chapter, he established the pioneering AMA SF mentoring program and the Externship Academy, contributing significantly to the growth of junior marketers and small businesses. I’m committed to crafting meaningful experiences that elevate brands and enrich lives, leveraging human-centric design and strategic creativity to tackle complex business challenges.
Miriam Ispahani
Founder & CEO, Sonali Bioplastics
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mariam Ispihan is a climate tech entrepreneur dedicated to creating innovative solutions to address the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges. Her entrepreneurial journey began in college with an eCommerce business, but her true calling emerged in the renewable energy and sustainability sectors.
As the Founder & CEO of Sonali Bioplastics, Mariam leads the development of plant-based alternatives to traditional plastics. Under her leadership, the company is advancing compostable packaging films and biocomposites that are transforming industries ranging from packaging to 3D printing, while supporting sustainable farming practices and cleantech initiatives that reduce carbon emissions.
Beyond her professional work, Mariam is passionate about aviation, creative writing, and global travel. She holds an FAA Private Pilot License and is a published author of short stories and poetry. Fluent in multiple languages, she believes strongly in the power of diverse perspectives to drive meaningful change. Her leadership approach is rooted in resilience, adaptability, and collaboration, with a focus on building solutions that benefit both people and the planet.
Moderator:
Sadia Raveendran
Founding Head of GTM, Stealth Startup
Sadia Raveendran is an energy and cleantech professional, problem-solver, and leader with 15+ years of experience across regions, functions, and technologies. She previously led Industry Solutions and the Schneider Electric partnership at AutoGrid (later Uplight) selling grid flexibility solutions to global utilities. She also enabled the deployment of utility scale solar and wind capacity through prior stints at GE Renewable Energy (now GE Vernova) and Tata Power. Now, as part of the founding team at a stealth startup, she is tackling AI datacenter capacity challenges to power the next phase of growth.
EVENT SPONSORSHIPS AVAILABLE! Please email us at info@womencleantechsustainability.org if you have any questions.
