Leading the AI Upskilling Race and the Future of Leadership

Welcome to The Connect Current, the flow of innovation in San Diego. We bring you the founders, investors, and leaders building the future across life science, tech, climate, defense, AI, and more. This is where San Diego's next chapter takes shape. Welcome to The Connect Current, the flow of innovation in San Diego. I'm your host, James Zanewicz, and this episode is being recorded at the UC San Diego Park and Market building. So we want to thank them for that support. Today, I'm joined by one of my BFFs for life, who I just met like, what, 6 months ago, Holly Smithson. She is the CEO of Athena, which is a San Diego-based organization with long Connect ties that is focused on developing executive leaders and building strong communities that support leadership growth across industries, as well as an exciting new initiative we're gonna talk about today. And this conversation comes at a moment of real urgency surrounding that initiative. As AI rapidly reshapes industries, leaders are facing one of the biggest workforce transitions in decades. The question is no longer if AI will impact your organization or when, but it's how quickly can your people adapt, because it's now. This makes this a great Connect Current conversation, not just about technology, but about leadership responsibility, talent development, and what it takes to stay competitive in a rapidly changing innovation economy. Holly, I'm so glad to have you here.

I'm glad to be here, James. Thanks for having me. And you're looking fabulous, by the way.

Thank you. I had multiple looks today because, you know, we're doing several of these back to back, and Trey has gotten to see all the looks. I'm gonna make him rank them at the end of the day. The energy flowers. You should see my pile of glasses here so I can change looks. But Holly, more importantly, for listeners meeting you and Athena for the first time, what is Athena focused on? Who do you serve? And why does this work matter right now?

I will tell you, for over 25 years, Athena has been at the front row driving leadership development for women in STEM and cultivating male allies. And although we were launched here in San Diego and incubated out of CONNECT 26 years ago, we have sprung to be global in nature, both with our resources, our network, and our impact.

Mm-hmm.

And so it's just an extraordinary opportunity, as you might imagine, to leverage that 26 6-year leadership training muscle at a time when everybody is rocked with AI upskilling. And quite frankly, that sits right in our sweet spot. And I will tell you, there is so much excitement because much of the energy around science and tech is predicated on discovery.

Mm-hmm.

That's what everybody in the STEM disciplines does every single day. And so the opportunity to upskill, I would submit, is the largest workforce transformation in our lifetime. And so while there is fear, real fear, it is also met with a level of curiosity and that same rigor of curiosity that we have seen provide some incredible innovative breakthroughs. So that's where we are today, and I'm excited to roll out our AI training products earlier this year and start to really signal to the market that San Diego has the highest rate of AI adoption, that we have the highest concentration of AI-ready talent, and that we are focused in a very coordinated and strategic fashion. This is not happening by happenstance. This is organized. This is coalesced with an eye on the AI Prize.

I like that. And we always like exploring not only new initiatives like this, but also just how people find their way into leadership and innovation. And that's rarely a linear path. And so before we jump into this initiative, I want to find out, What that journey looked like for you, and how did you wind up at Athena? Because you've had a great history.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. You know, I often hear thought leaders and different guests on your podcast and other podcasts about the nonlinear approach, but I would say that throughout my entire career journey, the single thread throughout has always been giving a voice to the voiceless. And I started my career as a reporter and a TV anchor, which was always what I knew I wanted to do since I was a little girl and I saw Peter Jennings on TV because he was so damn handsome.

Did you ever get to meet him when you were reporting? No.

And he died. He died. I think he died really young. I think he smoked cigarettes and then he quit.

Like everyone at that age, yeah.

Yeah, exactly, on TV. And then he quit and then I think 9/11, something happened and he picked up smoking and then left the planet from lung cancer. But my point is, that was sort of my inspiration and it was really the most natural ambition for me was to be in front of a large group of folks and get them educated, make them aware of what was happening in their own backyard so that they might be informed to make any number of responses that align with their values. And so that was kind of the early days of my journey. I love that. And then what I found, quite frankly, James, is Going into the police station every morning, having a police scanner by my bed.

Because you had to be able to hop up and go.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

And every day, I mean, it was Groundhog Day, you know, the 5:00 news, the 5:30 news, the 6:00 news. There was no deviation. There was no spontaneity. It was always— it was just like, look, I'm 25. This is boring as shit. Yeah, this ain't— this ain't— I'm not doing this for another 50 years. This ain't happening. So I decided to take my love of language and storytelling and the narrative design and go to Washington, D.C. And it was on Capitol Hill that I decided to get into public policy and to lobby and to shape the public policy that the private sector would then be expected to be governed by. And what I learned, although I was very young, I was in my 20s and 30s, is I say I got my PhD in how not to treat people.

Mm-hmm.

And I saw these 535 members of Congress, They would basically eat their young and sell their mother for the preservation of power.

It's even worse now. Like, and that was just then. Yeah. At least there was an illusion to the public of getting along then. Now there's not even that illusion.

Yeah, the illusion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The cat's out of the bag for sure. The illusion— there's not even an effort to try to put the wool. And so that for me was a very, very intense concentration of leadership at its core. And we can learn so much much about leadership by seeing what not to do.

Yeah.

And so I really cut my teeth in the most powerful seat on the planet with a decade on Capitol Hill. And then I went to work for President Bush as an appointee, which was extraordinary, extraordinary honor. And the work that had to be done in order for me to get that appointment, because it was a very small group in addition to the cabinet members that go through Senate confirmation. I did not. really having to articulate your value, going to the members of Congress, going to different policymakers, stakeholders, and making the case on why I should be selected as a—

Why you?

As an appointee. And I did. I was down in Florida during the hanging chads. I mean, I did work on the campaign. Obviously, that was your first show of loyalty to the president. But ultimately, was given that honor, and it was extraordinary. I worked for Secretary Condoleezza Rice at the State Department during 9/11, and then I worked for Governor Whitman. former Governor Whitman from New Jersey, who headed up the EPA. And EPA was the committee of jurisdiction for the cleanup of 9/11. So here I am, just parachuting in, I'm in my early 30s, I've got this appointment, I've got my badge, working for the president, and now we're going, we're leading—

Immediately handling a national crisis, yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, so you can imagine, just the leadership lessons there were, of course you don't know it when you're in it, You're just, you know, I'm just like—

You're just doing your job.

Yeah, I'm just like, oh my God, I can't believe I got here. You know, you're at the top of the political mountain and you're looking down in the valley and going, wow, wow, this is an incredible different perspective. And so that began to shape my values in profound fashion. And it also got me to a line where I didn't want to be. I know I don't ever wanna treat somebody that way because I will have political gain, or financial gain, or ego gain. Like, that is where all of it was shaped, like a surgeon. And so although the 10 years was an extraordinary journey, I saw a lot of, I saw a lot of stuff. And with that, I came to DC and I said, I want to come to California. I actually want to come out here and I want to tap into this entrepreneurial thing that I've got burning.

As well as the good weather.

And the good weather.

Let's be honest.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a given. That's a bonus.

Having been through DC winters and DC summers, it does not suck in San Diego.

No, no, no. It was the last snowstorm that triggered my decision to sell everything I own, head west, like so many of us do. And so I came to California and I, at the time it was the, I think it was the Great Recession, 2008. So the economy was collapsing. I mean, every industry was folding and I'm like, Great timing, Holly.

Mm-hmm.

I wonder what kind of opportunity I'm gonna find in this shit show. And so what happened was I saw Mayor Jerry Sanders. He was having a press conference, and he was teared up. And he was talking about he was going against the Republican Party's platform on gay marriage. And his daughter had come out, and he was like, I care more about my family and my daughter and her happiness than I do the GOP's platform. So if you don't like it, Kiss off. And I was in the hotel unpacking and I saw the press conference and I got in the cab 'cause we didn't have Uber then.

Right.

And I went down to City Hall and I was like—

Sign me up.

Yeah. I was like, I'm Holly Smithson. I saw the press conference. Anything that I can do for the mayor, I wanna do. I worked in public policy, I worked for the president, blah, blah, blah, blah. And 3 weeks later, I got a job to run Cleantech San Diego, and we were gonna make San Diego a global cleantech hub. And that was my launch into this community.

Also a Connect incubated entity.

Yes. Yes. So it's full circle. It's so cool that we're all sitting here in one big family.

I love it. And so that kind of brings us to where you are now, and kind of, obviously, you care more about helping people upskill and get where they should go versus keeping them down. You learned what you didn't want to do and what you do want to do. And you've described this moment as one of the largest races forward for workforce in our lifetimes with the AI upskilling. So what's actually happening inside companies right now that makes it so critical?

Well, I will tell you, and I'm not here to point fingers, James, because I—

But you're just pointing out facts and things you've seen.

Yes, but I could be pointing at myself as well, insofar as what we're seeing with a lot of the companies is this fear of the unknown, which is, you know, intrinsic human experience. There is so much volatility in the market, the global, the geopolitics, the market, and so that is the biggest pain point for every business is uncertainty at this magnitude. So you've got a lot of different layers taking place here.

Mm-hmm.

And you've got AI, obviously the commercialization of AI at scale. Then you've got all of the tariffs, the wars, the economy, everything that's happening. And then you have the displacement, the job displacement of AI. Then you've got the investment race about the data centers. We saw what happened with Oracle. And so all of that has a net effect of crippling the executive leaders who don't feel easy, who don't feel confident. And so what ends up happening is the people that are taking the lead despite the fear, despite the uncertainty, they are getting that competitive edge. They're investing in getting their employees to be AI-ready and AI-literate so that they can be strategic about where are we going to use it and where aren't we going to use it.

And productive.

is a big question that every board conversation involves, right? Not what are we going to do, what aren't we going to do? That's just as important. And so even though I think 80% of companies say the biggest barrier to entry in terms of AI adoption is the talent, and so there has to be a wholesale investment in upskilling, and there's a reluctance on the part of the employee population who says, well, if I get trained and I'm so damn good at it, then you're going to replace me. So you have this really interesting tension and dynamic happening when we all know that this is not slowing down.

And some of the largest companies that were built on innovation are the most resistant to doing this. Like, they literally built their legacy on being innovative and moving forward, but once they get to a certain size, they don't. So if they're not, whether they're large, small, whatever, if they're not investing in AI literacy and workforce development, What's the real risk and where can that gap start to show up for them in either performance or competitiveness or whatever else you're seeing out there?

Well, there's a lot of different approaches that we're seeing in the marketplace, certainly. So, with Athena, we have a portfolio of about 50 leadership programs we take to market every day. And our customers are large STEM companies like Oracle, Pfizer, Amazon Web Services, Intuit, Qualcomm, all of these big companies. But the large companies already offer internal training, right? They're large enough, they have the resources and the capacity to do that. For the small, medium-sized companies, which is 80% of the community, those are the folks that need that internal training and outsource with groups like Athena who can provide those resources to their employees. But what needs to happen is we need to understand this isn't about tools. This isn't about a tech stack. This isn't about layering on tool application. This is about strategic AI implementation, AI training, AI strategy. And so what I fear is happening is that we're looking at this as a tool, an AI tool race versus an AI strategic, human in the loop, human in the loop. Where do we use it? Where don't we use it? Do we use it just in certain functions in our clinical trials or our drug development or our software engineers? Do we just start with workflow? Do we start redefining the way the entire company designs their workflow process? Because that's foundational. And if you don't get that foundation right, then when you start to layer on the different tech stacks, it's going to be a hot mess. And it's a race to the bottom.

Right.

Right. So I think, at least at this point in my journey, trying to take the AI gospel out to every stage and every audience that I possibly can, is to get people excited about being a strategic AI-human leader. And we have to educate ourselves, and we can't wait for the market to be more palatable. We can't wait for the market to look more—

If you wait for it to catch up, you're 5 to 10 years behind.

Yeah. Yeah. You're under the train. You're under the train. So, and the last thing I want to do to audience is fear them. I'm not interested. I used to work in cybersecurity and the whole leadership or the whole sales approach was, hey, listen, listen, Smithson, this is how we do it. And defense contractors, we sell by FUD, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I'm like, yeah, no, that's not my approach. My approach is I want people to feel empowered because they're getting educated.

And they want to lean in. Yeah.

And they want to lean in. So the idea is we need to have a full command. I mean, a robust understanding of not only the promise of AI, but the perils. And my heart's beating, just my heartbeat just increased, just—

'Cause you're excited about it, yeah.

But I mean, just saying the perils, because we're all seeing it in our Instagram loops and all the social media, we're seeing the worst-case scenarios. And that was the same thing when we had nuclear power, right? And so if it's not respected and it's not fully understood, it can be extinction. And this is no different in that endeavor, but it's also gonna require a global coordination. Because right now, the guys, the 5 AI giants, someone argued the oligarchs of the US, they're trying to beat—

Or the world at this point. Or the world.

I mean, they're trying to beat Russia and China, right? So it's just, again, that's a different race, right? That's the arms race. Who's going to destroy who faster, more furious? And so again, we can be overwhelmed with good reason, but for me, what calms me in all of this is the education. The education. And that's where Athena comes in. So we can leverage that 25-year history, providing the leadership and getting people empowered and excited and motivated.

Well, and you're doing that right here in San Diego. I mean, you're doing that with a number of groups where Athena kind of has taken the lead in being that connective infrastructure around AI upskilling. And you've convinced a number of the civic-minded organizations here to do so. Can you talk a little bit about that and kind of what your plans are there?

You know, one of the things— I'm happy to do that. One of the things that I absolutely loved when I landed in San Diego back in 2008 was what I found and discovered when I ran Cleantech San Diego was there was this— I put together a board. There was, you know, maybe 30 or 40 board members, you know, C-levels from different organizations that wanted to be a part of this sustainability initiative that the mayor was leading. And there was this like I was a little taken aback. They were collaborating. There was no playbook. There was no clean tech. It wasn't an industry. It was an asset class.

Right.

It wasn't even an industry. And these guys are coming to the table like, okay, okay, well, we're gonna do this on wind. Okay, we're gonna do this in solar. We're gonna do the electric vehicle grid. Oh, the microgrid at UC San Diego, we generate 90% of our energy already. We can be a showcase. And I just looked around the room and I was so accustomed to the block and tackle of DC.

Of every city, like, honestly, like, here in New Orleans in many ways, like, there aren't many places that are like this.

Yes. And I said, you know, there's really something special here. And so that was my first entrée into the San Diego region powerhouse. And so it was because of that experience and that affinity for how we operate in San Diego that occurred to me during the AI strategy that we developed at the board level is We've got to reach out to Connect. We've got to reach out to the Cyber Center of Excellence. Let's reach out to Mark Cafferty at the San Diego Regional EDC. We need to reach out to Chris Thorne at the North County Business Chamber. We have got to bring people together and we've got to put our oars in the water and we got to make sure that we are rowing in the right direction and that we see the currents, we see the wind pattern, and we see the horizon of AI leadership. At scale, done here. And it's that vision that I then, you know, obviously reached out to my peers at the respective innovation clusters and said, guys, what are we doing? Let's get it together. Let's rock and roll. Let's do what we do better than anyone. And that is leverage the Collaboratory called San Diego.

Are there any risks or guardrails we should be putting in place as we do this and move forward?

Yeah, I love that you asked that question because as a—

Well, you can thank our producer Trey because he wrote it for me.

And by you, I mean Trey. Trey is the only way. And where I want your listeners to understand is that there are 3 levers in the AI race that everybody has to contemplate and we cannot dismiss, because if we do, there are massive implications. That is having a very strong command on The risks, the responsibility. We cannot move on this race without understanding those. And the fact that we don't have any guardrails, it's like everybody has a license before they get a driver— before they get a car. Everybody has a license if they're gonna go out and do any work on your pool or your house. You have to be a medical doctor if you're gonna go do surgery, open-heart surgery. But yet, But the only license you have to have in the AI race is $20 for ChatGPT. And we don't understand the risk. We don't understand that all of the data that we have scraped across the history of mankind is now baked in these new frontier models. And so all of the hate— That includes the hate, the discrimination, spewing of all of this rage that now is selling like hotcakes— is part of what's going into these models. that are feeding from and to the prompts. And so all of that biases is being spread at scale. And then all of that data has already been used. So now the models, the AI tools are actually using synthetic data, which is just regurgitating all of that biases. So if we don't understand that going into the design of the redesign of workflow, where we use it, where we don't use it, how often are we going to mandate human in the loop? We have this black box box. We don't know the parameters of the algorithms. We don't know the data in, we don't know the data out. We just have this black box that we are trusting implicitly. And that level of blind trust could be the end of humanity as we know it. And so there has to be an incredible amount of awareness of the limitations, again, the promise and the peril. And we can get really excited about the speed and the velocity by which we're spitting out information, but the idea that people think this is facts and truths, couldn't be further from the truth, and all it is is predictions, pattern predictions. And again, people are, if they don't have a strategy from the leadership, and they're just, and the leadership, the executive team at the company's like, everybody just from the ground, everybody just find your tool, go play with it, and then, you know, come on Friday and do a showcase, you know, lunch and learn on what tool you found and demonstrate the ROI. But what you're doing is you've got all these different use cases, but you've— you lack the strategy. And you lack creating that framework that says, this is how we're going to treat and respect AI. And this is going to be in alignment with how we respect our customers, our brand, our legacy, our culture. I mean, those are all critical considerations as we think about how we're going to co-create the AI of tomorrow.

Excellent. I love that. And, well, we always like to close with a standard question on the Connect Current, because everyone's innovation is driven by some sort of flow. So what drives your innovative flow? What is it that, that stirs your juices when you start thinking about things?

Well, I would say what activates my flow state is sitting at the intersection of Possibility, urgency, and fear. And you might imagine those were definitely some of the levers that I was standing at in my 10-year tour of duty on Capitol Hill. And so I know, I know a little about that triangulation, and it's a place where folks have to come in and articulate the vision of what's possible. Really, really make it clear about the sense of urgency that AI in its current iteration is demanding of us in terms of the urgency to upskill, the urgency to put guardrails in place, the urgency to know what this looks like if we go in with our blinders on. And then the fear that is very, very natural. We're human. To be human is to be afraid. And so let's leverage that fear. It's a healthy, healthy element. And let's make sure that that's our governor, that fear is our governor. How is using AI going to impact this company? These are the questions boards are asking right now. How is the use of AI going to further our culture code? How is the use of AI going to protect the enterprise value and our profits, and more importantly, our legacy? And if those aren't the burning questions, Then that's where fear is going to compound, and that's where an AI is going to— could potentially lead to the end of the story.

Thanks for listening to The Connect Current. If you want to learn more about Connect and explore resources across San Diego's innovation ecosystem, follow us on LinkedIn or visit connect.org. We'll see you next time on The Connect Current, where San Diego's innovation story Keeps moving forward.

This podcast was edited and produced by Resonate Recordings.