Official Bio

He started at Amazon.com in 2019 leading AI/ML training for select AWS customers, before moving to a global role building internal mechanisms to support digital innovation. He soon pivoted to leading innovation engagements that help customers bring resultant ideas to life. Demonstrating the breadth, depth, and agility of AWS. This approach offers a new opportunity to engage with customers – focusing on mission first, and complementing our approach to IT leaders and cloud migration/ adoption.

A Booz Allen Hamilton and IBM alumni, Dr. Ferleman is the author of a number of papers on conflict theory and global futures. He is noted for forecasting the Arab Spring and the Future of Russia, using quantitative measures for understanding dynamics within and across global systems. He currently teaches Data Analytics at George Mason University.

MY personal thoughts on innovation

I stumbled into the role of an innovation evangelist. As much as I tried to avoid a career in technology, I had skills and everyone needs builders. So, repeatedly I was given opportunities to create new tech solutions, invent tools to solve hard problems, and think big about the most difficult challenges. It wasn't what I really wanted to do, but it paid the bills and I was good at it.

Somewhere along the line, my love of strategy, international relations, design, and culture merged with my tech skills to solidly root me in the rationalist school of thought. I am both deductive and abstract. Edwin Booz once said, "if it can be done, it can be measured." I've come to believe that speed matters in business, bureaucracy breaks innovation, and process is the enemy of creativity. Jeff Bezos is famous for saying, "Failure & invention are inseparable twins", if you're going to innovate, you must accept a degree of failure.

I don't see a separation between data driven decision-making and experimentation. Data is deductive and experimentation is abstract. Done correctly, these are two-way doors. Decisions that can be reversed if they are not working as expected.

I get the question a lot, "what is innovation?" I push back against the notion that a "thing" is innovative, and lean more towards people being innovative. Innovation is the noun we give to the action verb, to innovate. An action noun or nomen actionis, if you will. I see four key pillars in how successful leaders innovate and make up our definition of "innovation":

1. Innovation requires technical structures that support rapid growth and change;
2. Encoded behaviors that facilitate innovative thinking;
3. Customer obsession which is central to builder success; and 
4. Empowering small teams that drive experimentation.

In my work, I have the freedom to innovate at the speed of relevance. I get bored easily, and when that happens I make bad decisions. So, it's natural that I should enjoy working on hard problems. I'm proud of what I've built at AWS and how we've been able to think big, move fast, and transform in the cloud. We work backwards from the customer and are right a lot.