Speaking · Teaching · Executive conversations
I speak about technology through enterprise reality, human behaviour and lessons earned from building, leading and occasionally getting things wrong.
Speaking topics
Every session is adapted to the audience and designed to leave behind a useful model, question or decision.
AI should do more than remove tasks. This talk examines how AI can improve decisions, augment judgment and return time for creative, relational and meaningful work. Audiences leave with a practical way to separate augmentation, automation and genuine operating value.
Drawing on manufacturing and maritime transformation, I explain why organizations stall between pilot and scale—and how ownership, data products, risk controls, lifecycle discipline, AgentOps and adoption create repeatable enterprise capability.
Data platforms do not create trust by themselves. This session shows how shared definitions, lineage, ownership, quality, semantic context and reusable data products help people make faster decisions without repeatedly debating the facts.
Good governance gives teams safe paths to move. Audiences learn how risk tiers, minimum guardrails, explicit decision rights and evidence-based gates can accelerate responsible innovation instead of turning governance into theatre.
A demonstration proves that something can work under selected conditions. A product must survive ownership, integration, support, security, changing data and real users. This talk gives leaders a practical readiness test for scale.
Faith has shaped my understanding of dignity, service, forgiveness, truth and accountability. I explore how leaders can hold high standards, deliver difficult messages and protect trust without humiliation or performative certainty.
Lessons from manufacturing, maritime, automotive and other traditional industries: respect operational expertise, protect continuity, build credibility in increments and connect new technology to the decisions people already carry.
After years as an executive, entrepreneur and lecturer, I have learned that questions reveal more than polished answers. This session develops curiosity, assumption testing and constructive challenge as practical executive capabilities.
Thirty years of stories
The material is grounded in real operating contexts, told with candour, practical detail and humour.
Starting with little more than an idea; building distributed service models; raising capital; opening European offices; learning product-market reality; selling three businesses; and discovering how quickly cash flow clarifies strategy.
Eight years teaching Technology Entrepreneurship, undergraduate and graduate classrooms, founders under pressure and the discipline of making an idea understandable without pretending it is simple.
Automotive data, 1,300+ dealers, more than two million monthly users, multi-brand environments and the commercial consequences of reliable—or unreliable—information.
Ships, connectivity, cybersecurity, IoT-scale signals, digital twins, optimization and the humility required when technology enters asset-intensive, safety-sensitive operations.
Balancing mill-level reality with enterprise standards; moving from enthusiastic demand to a governed portfolio; and building trusted data, guardrails and adoption as one operating system.
Success, error, faith, forgiveness, standards, asking better questions—and why eighth place in an eight-person cow-presentation contest remains a useful lesson in humility.
Formats
Sessions are available in English or French.
Background
Speaker biography
Jean Fahmy is a technology, Data and AI executive, CIO/CTO, entrepreneur and advisor with nearly three decades of experience transforming traditional and technology-enabled industries.
His career spans the enterprise internet, mobility, digital media, e-commerce, cloud, cybersecurity, data platforms, IoT, digital twins, machine learning and enterprise AI. He has worked as a founder, product builder, consultant, teacher, mentor, technology buyer and executive accountable for operations after the strategy was approved.
Most recently, he served as Vice President, AI & Data at Kruger, where he created an enterprise Data and AI strategy, governance model, roadmap, data-product foundation and responsible-AI operating system.
Previously, as Vice President, IT & Digital at Canada Steamship Lines, he held broad technology leadership accountability and led initiatives that improved ETA prediction by 30%, achieved 96% digital-twin accuracy and enabled 15–20% fuel reduction through route and speed optimization. He also secured $4.4 million in public funding.
Jean founded and sold three technology businesses, taught Technology Entrepreneurship for eight years and has been recognized by IDC, Info-Tech, OCTAS and the International Bulk Journal. His speaking combines executive experience, practical frameworks, humour and a deeply human view of technology.