Tech with Emily

About

Hi, I'm Emily.

Emily, smiling to the camera in a navy blazer against a dark studio background.

I build things with AI, I lead people who build things with AI, and I spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about how technology can make work and life better.

By day I lead AI Delivery, working where product, engineering, data science, and strategy meet. AI for its own sake doesn't hold my attention. What does is whether we can turn it into something useful. Something people trust. Something that works in the real world.

Outside of work I'm usually building too. Sometimes that's experimenting with agents, or redesigning this website. Most recently it's Selvo, a personalized communication project I started because of my brother, and because of a question I'd been circling for years: what would it look like if technology adapted to people instead of asking people to adapt to technology?

I also teach machine learning and Python, write about what I'm learning, and have a habit of turning things I'm curious about into projects.

If you're building toward something similar, I'd like to hear about it.

Signed, Emily Kenney
  • Senior Director of AI Delivery, The Standard
  • Founder, Selvo
  • MIDS, UC Berkeley
  • BS, Bioinformatics

How I work

Three things you can count on.

  1. 01

    I'll ask why.

    The real work is figuring out what problem is worth solving in the first place.

  2. 02

    I'll make it real.

    Ideas count when they're running in front of real users, not sitting in a slide deck.

  3. 03

    I'll bring people with me.

    The best work happens when people understand where we are going and have room to make it better.

Emily hugging her son in a warm-toned studio, both laughing.

The rest of my life.

When I'm not at a keyboard I'm chasing a very fast toddler, baking bread that's mostly good, and hiking the trails around the Pacific Northwest with more enthusiasm than technique.

I mention this because how someone works is inseparable from the rest of their life. If we work together, you get a whole person, one who wraps up before dinner and reads bedtime stories.

Where I've been

Background.

Each phase was a step further into how technology actually reaches people, and how the teams behind it get built.

  1. 2014–2018 Chapter 01

    Bioinformatics → Software

    A biology degree turned into a first engineering job when I realized code moved faster than the wet lab.

  2. 2018–2020 Chapter 02

    Software → Data science

    Started asking harder questions of the data behind the systems I was shipping.

  3. 2020–2023 Chapter 03

    Data science → Applied AI

    Moved from models on notebooks to models in production, and the operational work that comes with it.

  4. 2023–2025 Chapter 04

    Individual contributor → Building teams that build AI

    Started leading engineers and data scientists doing the work I used to do myself.

  5. 2025–today Chapter 05

    Local delivery → Global AI delivery

    Running a global function shipping enterprise AI products in a regulated industry.