Winner. Business Leader of the Year 2023

Ashlesha Kadam

Position: Product Head, Voice & Discovery, Amazon Music
Company: Amazon
City: Redmond, Washington
Country: USA
Economic/Business Sector: Technology/Software & IT Services

Ashlesha Kadam leads a global technical product team at Amazon Music that builds music experiences on voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant and in the Amazon Music apps (web, iOS, Android) for millions of customers across 45+ countries in 9+ languages.

Ashlesha began her professional journey right after graduating from the prestigious Computer Science Engineering course at BITS Pilani at Cisco Systems, the global leader for networking. Her passion for creating a more significant impact through her work led her to join the coveted flagship MBA program at IIM Bangalore. She was hand-picked, among a few, out of B-school to join Aditya Birla Group’s leadership program, where she worked with CXOs across B2B sales, marketing, M&A, and strategy.

During her stint at Aditya Birla Group, she launched Allen Solly, a top apparel brand in India, across online marketplaces and grew the online sales channel from 0 to 1. After spending some time with the Aditya Birla Group, she decided to pivot into a role where she could leverage her technical and business background to become a force multiplier in creating an outsized impact. In 2016, she joined Amazon, a top Fortune 500 company, and has had one of the fastest growth trajectories at Amazon.

At Amazon, Ashlesha has led multiple global launches of AI-enabled products and features. She leads the technical product development that uses AI to power all the music experiences from Amazon Music on Alexa. She works with engineering and science teams across the globe on the most cutting-edge AI technologies to create first-to-world music experiences on Alexa.

She has filed 2 patents in AI and voice assistants and is also on the editorial board for multiple AI-related scholarly journals.

Ashlesha Kadam is a passionate advocate for women in tech, serving as Co-Chair for the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) track for the Grace Hopper Celebration for 2023 & 2024 (the biggest tech conference for women in tech with 30K+ participants across 115 countries).

Looking forward, with the advent of the latest developments in AI, particularly Large Language Models powering ChatGPT and others, Ashlesha is at the forefront of this AI development, leading and influencing the voice assistant space to leverage these technologies to provide users with personalized, delightful yet ethical and safe product experiences.

Ashlesha’s mission and vision is to be a thought leader and influencing voice to help companies across the world use AI in a positive and ethical way to improve lives.

Ashlesha has launched numerous first-to-world music experiences on Alexa. She leads her team to craft music experiences ranging from specific requests (try "Alexa, play some French rap from the '90s") to vague ones (try "Alexa, play something good"). An example is enabling artists to introduce their new music in their own voice on Alexa, a feature that has been used by top artists around the world, like Taylor Swift, AR Rahman, and Justin Bieber. She also led her team to launch Amazon Music on the first 3rd party voice assistant – Google Assistant.

Ashlesha's team also drives the discovery of music that is new to customers, from forgotten favorites and undiscovered gems by your favorite artists to new releases on Alexa and mobile apps.

Her product launches have made positive PR for Amazon in leading publications like VentureBeat, Android Central, VoiceBot.ai, Pocket-lint, Tech Advisor, and more.

Ashlesha has made notable contribution to the field of voice technology that extend beyond her job. She has filed 2 patents and published numerous whitepapers in the field of AI in Voice Assistants.

She is on the Board of Editors for multiple AI and ML journals like the International Journal of AI Research and Development (IJAIRD).