Biography
The Hon. Michelle K. Lee is an experienced public board director, former CEO of a $3+ billion governmental agency, digital transformation leader, Fortune 2 AI technology executive, and advisor to CEOs, the C-suite and the President of the United States. Ms. Lee has spent most of her professional career building some of the country’s most innovative companies (Google and Amazon) and brings unique multi-disciplinary insights to her boards, helping to “see around corners” for opportunities and risks.
Ms. Lee serves on the boards of MassMutual (Fortune 100), Unity Software (NYSE: U) and MIT, has a deep understanding of innovation and technology trends introduced by the digital economy, cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and artificial intelligence, scaled fast-growing, global businesses, is one of the foremost intellectual property experts in the world and served as the principal advisor to the President on these issues, understands the impact of geopolitical forces (particularly involving China) on American companies and how to navigate complex policy, regulatory and legal landscapes, has successfully managed crisis communications as well as pro-active messaging to a multitude of stakeholders, and consistently led her organizations to rank amongst the top on employee engagement and diversity.
Ms. Lee is the founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies, which advises companies from a wide range of industries on business transformation through AI to achieve competitive advantage. Ms. Lee recently served as a senior executive and Vice President at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where she ran key parts of their global AI business including the Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision business. Ms. Lee was also the lead business executive in charge of the company’s efforts managing the policy, regulatory and ethical issues associated with AWS’ AI services.
Prior to Amazon, Ms. Lee served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. She was the CEO of one of the largest intellectual property offices in the world with annual revenues of over $3 billion and ~13,000 employees. In this role, Ms. Lee was the principal advisor to the President (through the Secretary of Commerce) on intellectual property matters. She is the first woman and first person of color to hold this position in our country’s 200+ year history. Prior to public service, Ms. Lee was an executive at Google, serving as Deputy General Counsel and a partner at Fenwick & West.
From 2017 to 2018, Ms. Lee held the appointment as the Herman Phleger Visiting Professor at Stanford Law School where she taught on disruptive technologies (artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles) and their impact on policies and regulations.
Ms. Lee has also worked as a computer scientist at Hewlett-Packard Research and the MIT Artificial Intelligence (AI) Laboratories. Ms. Lee holds a B.S. and an M.S. from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science and a J.D. from Stanford Law. Ms. Lee is a frequent speaker on the topics of digital transformation, innovation, and board governance including at the Consumer Electronics Show, South-By-Southwest, Stanford Directors’ College, the National Association of Corporate Directors and Silicon Valley Directors Exchange. Ms. Lee has testified before Congress about 10 times in her various areas of expertise and has received numerous awards for her leadership and professional accomplishments.
