Kate Puech

Critic
DISC Type : C

Director of AI Engineering at Axon

Seattle, Washington, United States

Overview

Kate Puech serves as the Director of AI Engineering at Axon, where she leads her organization in delivering responsible AI solutions for public safety. Her expertise is rooted in her Masters in AI from Polytechnique Montréal and a significant tenure at Microsoft, where she led teams in AI, privacy-preserving machine learning, and cloud architecture.

Outside of work, Kate is an aspiring pilot who enjoys flying an old Cessna on weekends. She is also an avid outdoor enthusiast, often found hiking in the Cascades, paddling on Puget Sound, or going for a run or swim. She balances her active life with reading and writing.

Interesting fact: Kate is a strong advocate for work-life balance and strictly reserves her evenings and weekends for family, flying, and personal passions, ensuring she remains disconnected from work.

Personality Overview

Negotiator

Critic

Objective Thinker

Unless the value is proven by data, they are unlikely to value fancy features.  It is very likely that they will negotiate pricing or other important terms. They enjoy working alone and do not rely on others very often.

Topics They Care About

Responsible AI
Her work at Axon is centered on building responsible AI to accelerate justice and protect truth. She frequently speaks on the topic and explores privacy-preserving techniques.
AI for Public Safety
She leads the team building the AI infrastructure for Axon's public safety ecosystem, including projects like automated license plate recognition for law enforcement vehicles.
Work-Life Balance
She is a vocal proponent of remote work and setting firm boundaries, blocking out daily time for exercise and keeping weekends clear for flying and family.

Media Appearances

Kate has no verified media appearances

Work History

10-2021
Director of AI Engineering at Axon
6-2020 - 10-2021
2020 - 2021: Principal Software Engineer Manager, Office 365 Intelligence at Microsoft
9-2017
2017-2020: Senior Software Engineer and Cloud architect, Microsoft Research, Speech and Language at Microsoft
10-2013 - 9-2017
2013-2017: Software engineer, Microsoft, Office 365 – OWA/Exchange server at Microsoft
1-2013 - 3-2013
Research assistant at Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal

Education

2010 - 2012
Master's of science (AI) from Polytechnique Montréal
2008 - 2011
Master's of science from IMT Atlantique

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 12 Location : Seattle, Washington, United States Job Level : Mid-senior Designation : Director of AI Engineering at Axon
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Insights For Selling To Kate

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Leverage facts and figures wherever possible; use percentages, numbers etc.
  • Be ready for penetrating questions and critical examination of your pitch
  • Use phrases like ‘expect X% improvement’, ‘data clearly shows’ etc.

DONT's

  • Make extra effort to not seem pushy or confrontational
  • Don’t rush them till they have clearly gotten all the necessary information
  • Don’t try to give too many examples of other users, they like to make their own decisions

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Kate is

  • Strong evidence of ROI, effective pricing, and proven data points matter the most to them.
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Kate

  • It is not very hard for them to say no if they are not convinced about the decision.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Kate move?

  • Their decision-making is neither very fast nor very slow, they are somewhere in between.
  • Can Kate take some risk or not?

  • They can take risks if their analysis shows that it would be worth it.

You And Kate

Personality Compatibility


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