About me
Tiarne Hawkins is an AI strategist, entrepreneur, public speaker, podcast host and industry leader driving AI innovation, transformation, and safety on a global scale, ensuring AI services for the greater good of society.
Tiarne’s journey began in IT recruitment programs in Australia, where she founded and led her first company at just 22, specializing in digital transformation consulting and recruitment. Through a strategic merger with leading firm Salt, she expanded operations into Asia, the UK, and Dubai, scaling the company to $37 million annual revenue before a successful exit. Following this success, Tiarne played a pivotal role in expanding an international firm in the U.S., contributing to its rapid growth from $500 million to $900 million as part of the global executive team.
In 2017, She joined Playable AI, positioning its cutting-edge AI-powered video editing and email marketing platform for market dominance, collaborating with entertainment giants like Disney and ESPN.
By 2019, Tiarne joined Welocalize, spearheading the launch of its AI training division, driving advancements in machine translation, multilingual language modeling, and AI data pipeline creation—leading AI programs for Google, Amazon, AWS, Meta, Apple, and more.
Before founding Optica Labs, Tiarne served as an Industry Strategist at Invisible Technologies, crafting AI training strategies for LLM research, AI program development, and next-gen AI training breakthroughs—customers included OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Nvidia, Cohere, Amazon, and more.
An influential voice in AI, Tiarne leads AI workshops for HPE, Nvidia, and AWS, engages CIO groups across the U.S., and speaks at premier industry events, including CES, AI Boston, AI Summit New York, and Voice & AI.
She are also the host of the ‘You & AI’ podcast, featuring conversations with top tech leaders such as Mark Cuban, Adam Cheyer, and many more.
Currently, Tiarne Hawkins is the Co-Founder of Optica Labs, an innovation lab operating at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and human interaction.