Ep15 A Winning Combination of Empathy, Confidence & Grit with Diane Bryant

This episode features a powerhouse of a story from a global technology leader with more than three decades of executive leadership in the global semiconductor, cloud computing services, artificial intelligence and technology-based health care solutions industries. Her name is Diane Bryant and her story will blow you away! Diane most recently served as the Chairman and CEO of NovaSignal, a medical technology and data company focused on applying robotics, artificial intelligence and cloud computing to the diagnosis of stroke and other brain illnesses. In her role as CEO, she raised three rounds of VC funding and exited with a sale of the company in 2023. Prior to NovaSignal, she served as the Chief Operating Officer of Google Cloud, where she focused on accelerating the scale and reach of Google Cloud’s business and was also responsible for Alphabet’s information technology organization. Prior to Google, Bryant spent 32 years at Intel where she held increasingly senior positions including her last two roles as the Group President of Intel’s Data Center Group, which grew to a $19 billion in revenue business in 2017 under her leadership, and as Intel’s Corporate Vice President and Chief Information Officer, responsible for the corporate-wide information technology solutions and services that enable Intel’s business.

Diane serves on several boards including the board of directors of Broadcom Inc., Haemonetics Corporation, and Celestial AI and she also serves as the chair of the UC Davis Chancellor’s Board of Advisors.

Diane was named among Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2015 and 2016 and is a tireless advocate for women and underrepresented minorities in the fields of engineering and technology. She established the Diane Bryant Engineering Student Center at the University of California-Davis, and the Diane Bryant STEM Innovation Center at the American River Community College. In 2016, World Affairs and its Global Philanthropy Forum honored Diane with its Global Citizen Award. Business Insider ranked Diane #6 among the Most Powerful Female Engineers in 2018. In 2020, Becker’s Heathcare named Diane one of 7 “shaker and mover” leaders affecting health IT.

Diane received her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from U.C. Davis in 1985. She attended Stanford Graduate School of Business, completing the Executive Program in 2011. Diane is also an electrical engineer who holds four U.S. patents in mobile computing.

We talked about all of this and our conversation was so wide ranging and compelling, I am bringing it to you in two parts. In this episode, we talk about Diane’s early life and her journey to college, her career at Intel, the challenges she’s faced as a woman in a male dominated industry and her advocacy for DEI initiatives.