What do championship athletes, enterprise innovators, and community leaders all have in common?
They know that transformation does not happen in isolation. It happens when teams come together with a shared goal, the right strategy, and the courage to try something new.
That is why at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference in Orlando, Florida from April 21 to 23, 2026, we are bringing the spirit of collaboration to life in a whole new way by welcoming a dynamic lineup of guest voices from the worlds of professional sports, innovation strategy, and real-world AI adoption at scale.
This year, we are proud to host legendary athletes Chasity Melvin and Kia Vaughn, alongside innovation thought leaders Dan Toma, Manjunatha Sivanna, Maral Taak, and Christopher Blakeley as they join Microsoft leaders on stage to explore how teamwork, leadership, experimentation, and trust are shaping the future of AI powered organizations.
Chasity Melvin is a former WNBA All-Star and coach, with over two decades of experience in professional basketball. As a first-round draft pick, she played 12 seasons in the WNBA and spent over a decade winning championships internationally. She is a multifaceted coach with experience at the collegiate and professional levels including a stint with Charlotte Hornets as the first female coach to coach men.
Her accolades include being an author, motivational speaker, and co-host of the Washington Mystics pre- and postgame show, where she shares her informed perspective as both a player and a coach. She is passionate about the business of sports and technology and is intentional about lending her voice in conversations that drive impact and inspire change.
At the conference, she will join Corporate Vice President and Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan in a fireside chat to share insights on AI and its collaborative future in changing roles, leadership, and transformation. This fireside chat will be hosted by the Director of Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration, Karuana Gatimu.
Kia Vaughn is an international champion known across WNBA in the United States and worldwide. Immersed in basketball from an early age, she honed her craft at Rutgers, delivering standout performances on the championship stage.
Throughout her 14-year career on several WNBA teams, including the New York Liberty, Washington Mystics, Phoenix Mercury, and Atlanta Dream, she developed a reputation as a consummate professional. Known for her preparation and reliability, she is geared up to bring an impact-driven global perspective to our Women in Technology Lunch in a conversation with Karuana Gatimu, Director of Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration. Don’t miss her insights as she navigates the challenges of an ever-changing league.
Dan Toma is the CEO and Partner at Outcomes Consulting, where he helps global organizations in enhancing their approach to technology. He is an acclaimed author with a key focus on leadership, technology strategy, and delivering business outcomes. As co-author of the recent text, “Innovation Accounting”, he offers practical, detailed, and focused guidance on fostering a culture of experimentation and innovation, essential for organizations adopting generative AI. We’re excited to have him join the Director of Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration, Karuana Gatimu, in a fireside chat on real world adoption best practices at scale.
And because AI is only as powerful as the impact it drives in the real world, we are also excited to spotlight customer voices leading enterprise transformation today.
Real world customer stories
Across our product keynotes, Microsoft customers will bring AI transformation to life by sharing how they are moving from experimentation to impact inside their own organizations. These global brands offer a real-world look at how teams are adopting AI, modernizing operations, and building for the future with greater confidence, creativity, and scale. Their stories ground our keynotes in practical insight and show what it really takes to turn innovation into meaningful business outcomes.
Featured in our day one keynote Building for the Future: Microsoft 365, Agents and AI, What's New and What's Next with Jeff Teper, Executive Vice President, Collaborative Apps and Platforms:
Maral Taak, Associate Vice President and Head of Enterprise Generative AI at the National Basketball Association, leads enterprise-wide AI strategy, architecture, and governance. Maral has more than 20 years of experience using cutting-edge technology to create and identify practical solutions that drive real-world impact. Since joining the NBA, she has focused on shaping the league's enterprise AI capabilities, including deploying intelligent agents, scaling agentic workflows across business functions, and driving broad adoption of generative AI across the organization. Prior to joining the NBA, Maral spent four years at Amazon, where she led the delivery of generative AI solutions across healthcare & life sciences. She also previously spent nearly a decade at IBM spearheading AI-driven automation projects across industries ranging from finance to healthcare. Her experience spans large-scale cloud deployments, AI infrastructure management, and compliance for Fortune 500 clients. She started her career as a computer vision researcher at L.R.V (Laboratoire de Robotique de Versailles).
Featured in our day one keynote Business Apps & Agents with Ryan Cunningham, Corporate Vice President:
Christopher Blakeley, Principal Program Manager and AI & Agentic Automation Enablement at NASA. In this role, Chris leads the Agency’s Intelligent Automation strategy and drives the expansion of NASA’s Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem that supports more than 50,000 employees across all Centers. He oversees secure and scalable platform adoption, enabling mission and administrative teams to rapidly build automation solutions that streamline operations and advance NASA’s digital transformation goals. brings a unique perspective on applying advanced technologies in mission critical environments. Chris leads the Federal wide Power Platform Focus Group, collaborating with government agencies to coordinate best practices, governance approaches, and enterprise adoption strategies. With more than 20 years of service at NASA, including roles at Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center, Chris contributes to government‑wide modernization by championing responsible automation and empowering the federal workforce with ai-enabled digital tools.
In our day two keynote Securing AI: Building Trust in the Era of AI with Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security and Rohan Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Purview will be joined by:
Manjunatha Sivanna, Principal Platform Manager at Cummins Inc., will provide a look into how enterprise organizations are integrating AI into core business functions to improve decision making, streamline workflows, and empower teams to innovate faster in a rapidly changing technology landscape. In his current role, he is responsible for enterprise-wide adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot and Enterprise AI, establishing information governance and compliance foundations using Microsoft Purview, and enabling low-code innovation through the Power Platform. He works closely with legal, compliance, security, and business teams to ensure AI is deployed in a way that is secure, compliant, and pragmatically useful for employees. He has been a key driver behind large-scale Copilot rollouts, enterprise AI governance models, and ECM modernization initiatives, helping organizations move from experimentation to real-world, production-ready AI outcomes. He is passionate about bridging the gap between technology capability and business value, and about shaping practical patterns for Responsible and Agentic AI in the enterprise.
Together, these voices reflect the very best of our community: diverse perspectives, shared challenges, and a willingness to learn from one another as we shape what comes next. Because in the era of AI, progress is not built alone. It is built together, with trust, curiosity, and teamwork at the center.
Because when it comes to AI, success is a team sport.
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