Meet Our New CEO: Wendy Gonzalez

Today, the Sama Board of Directors, leadership team and employees are thrilled to announce that Wendy Gonzalez is our new Chief Executive Officer.

Having served as President and COO at Sama since 2018, Wendy stepped into the role of Interim CEO when our CEO and founder, Leila Janah, passed away in January of 2020 following a battle with epithelioid sarcoma.

Over the past year, Wendy has successfully led the Sama team through the uncertainty of 2020 while achieving significant organizational milestones along the way. As a company, we’ve continued to develop our leading training data platform, including launching Machine Learning Assisted Annotation which has improved annotation efficiency by over 300% to regularly deliver quality SLAs between 96-99%.

In addition to recruiting an engineering workforce of more than 30% Ph.Ds., under Wendy’s leadership Sama has achieved a three-year revenue growth of 134%, gaining recognition on the Inc. 5000 list as one of America's fastest-growing private companies.

Wendy has over two decades of managerial and technology leadership experience for companies including EY, Capgemini Consulting and Cycle30 (acquired by Arrow Electronics), and is an active Board Member of the Leila Janah Foundation. Wendy’s commitment to actualizing Leila's vision at Sama is unwavering.

"We have been determined to find the right person to carry forward Leila's vision and commitment to Sama, and that woman is Wendy," said Ben Metcalfe, Member of Sama's Board of Directors and Board Advisor at Ridge Ventures. "Following a thorough recruitment process, we're certain that Wendy is the right person to lead Sama through this next stage."

In her new role, Wendy will drive the technology, innovation and growth that Leila began. As CEO, she becomes a part of a small group of female leaders within the male-dominated AI industry and will work not only to prioritize innovation but empower people around the world to be part of the growing AI economy.

Over the years at Sama, Wendy has become a trusted mentor and thought leader. As a team, we look forward to being a part of her success.