Karina Edmonds
VP, Head of Academies and University Alliances
SAP |
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 VP and Global Lead for 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.
Edmonds was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy as the first full-time Technology Transfer Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in April 2010. In that role, Edmonds was responsible for working with the DOE’s national laboratories to accelerate the advancement of discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. She has also held positions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and TRW, Inc. (now Northrop Grumman). Edmonds has co-authored two patent applications in the area of noise reduction for the automotive environment. As a Principal Research Scientist, her research at Northrop Grumman was in support of speech recognition for mobile applications.
Edmonds was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy as the first full-time Technology Transfer Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in April 2010. In that role, Edmonds was responsible for working with the DOE’s national laboratories to accelerate the advancement of discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. She has also held positions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and TRW, Inc. (now Northrop Grumman). Edmonds has co-authored two patent applications in the area of noise reduction for the automotive environment. As a Principal Research Scientist, her research at Northrop Grumman was in support of speech recognition for mobile applications.