Richard Halkett

Chief Customer Officer SambaNova Systems

SambaNova Systems is the long-term leader in AI for enterprises, delivering a full-stack chips-tomodels platform, powered by the market-leading SN40L RDU processor. Richard leads Sales, Marketing, Customer Engineering, and Customer Success. Previously, he established and led the Worldwide Innovation and Transformation Program at Amazon Web Services (AWS) that used methodologies inspired by Amazon’s innovation mechanisms (e.g. Working Backwards) to help customers develop and deliver new solutions on AWS. Richard also led Cisco’s Digital Capabilities organization, and before that the company’s first sales teams focused on Business Analytics and Software, and the Americas Public Sector business development group. Prior to joining Cisco, he worked in the U.K. and U.S. on foreign, technology, and innovation policy. He was the founding Policy & Research Director of Nesta (the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts) and was the founding Chief Executive of Boxmind, the Oxford-based educational content, software, and services company. A native of Lancashire, England, Richard lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife and three children. He earned his Masters of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a U.K.-U.S. Fulbright Scholar. He completed his undergraduate degree at Merton College, Oxford. He is a member of the Board of Advisers for the Friends of the British Council in the United States.