Karina Montilla Edmonds

Karina Montilla Edmonds is a globally recognized visionary leader in the field of innovation, technology transfer, and commercialization. She is a strategic thinker and strong problem solver adept at building partnerships and influencing key stakeholders. Her strong interpersonal skills emphasize her ability to lead with empathy and trust. She has decades of experience working with the private sector, universities, and national laboratories across the country.

Dr. Edmonds currently serves as the SVP and Global Head of Academies and University Alliances at SAP. In this role, she is leading university partnerships that inspire, expose and educate students through engaging SAP curriculum. She also oversees the Sales and Engineering Academies which develop early talent and emerging leaders to build the best sales and engineering talent in the world.

Prior to joining SAP, Edmonds was the Global Lead for Cloud AI at Google in Sunnyvale, California. At Google, her primary role was to facilitate research collaborations in AI between Google Cloud and top academic researchers. Edmonds joined Google Cloud from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where she served as the Executive Director for Corporate Partnerships. At Caltech, she was responsible for implementing and managing an integrated strategy with the private sector and major federal funding agencies across numerous research areas.