Why Sheena Is the Right Fit for Q2:

• Direct fintech experience and prior familiarity with Q2 through her work operating CapWay
• Deep alignment with Q2’s mission around community, access, and innovation in financial services
• Firsthand experience researching banks, credit unions, and fintechs across the U.S.
• Credible voice on how technology can move from intention to measurable impact
• Brings a Black History Month lens grounded in lived experience, not abstraction
• Strong resonance with technology-forward, purpose-driven employee audiences

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Proposed Presentation:

"I can see a few strong angles that would resonate well with their audience and align naturally with Q2’s mission and Black History Month. A few ideas that come to mind:

Why Q2’s commitment to building strong and diverse communities matters more now than ever. Over the past year, I’ve been deeply embedded in on-the-ground research, conducting in-person case studies and conversations with presidents and executives across banks, credit unions, and fintechs. What’s become very clear is that financial institutions that truly empower their local communities by expanding access, opportunity, and trust are increasingly the difference between progress and stagnation. Q2’s mission sits at the center of that reality.

Technology as a catalyst for the future of banking and financial inclusion. As a former fintech founder and someone who has spent the last 12–15 months doing in-person research around digital financial inclusion, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful technology can be when applied intentionally. This is especially true in underserved or geographically overlooked communities where access to financial institutions is limited or nonexistent. There’s a meaningful conversation to be had around how innovation can move from intention to real impact.

Black History Month–focused lens. If Q2 would like to anchor the session more directly in Black History Month, I’m also happy to speak from the perspective of being a Black woman fintech founder, which is still a very underrepresented group. Or, alternatively, explore why gaps in financial inclusion for Black America persist, even with the push and action by many for digital financial inclusion.

I’m very flexible and open to shaping the session around the theme they’re envisioning."

Why Kim Is the Right Fit for Q2

• Direct alignment with Q2’s focus on AI, innovation, and future-facing leadership
• Brings a human-centered, values-driven perspective to conversations about technology
• Connects emerging tech to community, culture, and collective responsibility
• Offers a reflective and inspiring Black History Month lens rooted in history, memory, and progress
• Well-suited for thoughtful, intellectually curious employee audiences
• Experienced in customizing sessions to align with organizational mission and context

Recommended Topics:

Kim will work closely with Q2 to customize her session to align with their goals, audience, and industry context. She has expressed particular interest in tailoring a presentation focused on large language models (LLMs), fintech, and how organizations can thoughtfully identify and address bias in AI systems—an angle that naturally connects Q2’s innovation priorities with broader conversations around responsibility, inclusion, and impact. This customization ensures the session is both timely and directly relevant to Q2’s teams, bridging technical insight with human-centered leadership considerations.

Her existing presentations include:

The AI Mosaic: Weaving Diverse Perspectives

In this session Kim speaks about the importance of championing diversity within the realm of artificial intelligence (AI). Recognizing the pivotal role that varied perspectives play in shaping technology, she advocates for an inclusive approach to AI development. By talking about her own journey and her work at Parallax Futures, Kim underscores the importance of integrating voices from different backgrounds, cultures, and disciplines. This holistic view not only enriches AI’s potential but also ensures its benefits are universally accessible, steering us towards a future where technology reflects the rich tapestry of human experience.

AI and the Ancestral Mind: Remembering ourselves Forward with Technology

In this provocative and soulful keynote, Kim draws connections between ancestral wisdom, trauma healing, and emergent technologies. What if AI could help us remember instead of just optimize? Kim explores how community memory, oral traditions, grief rituals, and indigenous intelligence offer critical insight into building more humane and conscious AI. This session offers a pathway for those ready to design for the future from a deeper remembering.

Inspired by Intelligence: Rediscovering Human Purpose in the Age of AI

Against a backdrop of rapid innovation, Kim reframes AI as a mirror and amplifier of our best selves. Through storytelling, reflective inquiry, and strategic visioning, this session invites audiences to explore how creativity, ethics, and purpose can guide technology toward human flourishing. Participants walk away motivated to lead AI transformation with soul and intention.

Why Sherhara Is the Right Fit for Q2

• Direct alignment with Q2’s focus on resilience, innovation, and building community
• Brings a communication-first lens that supports leaders in high-stakes, fast-moving environments
• Helps employees strengthen presence, clarity, and self-advocacy—skills essential in fintech and technology-driven organizations
• Offers a Black History Month perspective that is grounded, affirming, and forward-looking, without performativity
• Creates space for both reflection and practical application, resonating with diverse employee audiences
• Trusted by global organizations to support culture, leadership development, and connection at scale

Customized Session:
Mastering the Shameless Plug - Resilience, Innovation, and Community: A Black History Month Leadership Experience

This program reframes resilience as a practiced leadership skill, one that is built intentionally, sustained through clarity, and strengthened in community. Anchored in a Black History Month lens, the experience honors legacy while activating forward movement, drawing on the leadership, creativity, and collective strength rooted in Black history, the impact and contributions of the organization’s Black leaders.

The session connects historical resilience to modern leadership demands, supporting participants in strengthening presence, communicating value under pressure, and sustaining energy without burnout or self-erasure.

Program Focus:

Resilience as a Repeatable Practice

Participants explore resilience not as endurance alone, but as agency, voice, and alignment. The session highlights how resilience has historically shown up in Black communities as vision and leadership, not just survival.

Innovation and Communication Under Pressure

Through storytelling and practical frameworks, participants examine how innovation emerges when people can clearly articulate their values, ideas, and perspectives in high-stakes environments.

Community, Connection, and Sustainable Leadership

The program creates space for reflection and shared experience, reinforcing that resilience is strengthened through connection and sustained within community.

‍What Participants Gain ‍

• Practical tools to strengthen leadership presence and self-advocacy
• Clear frameworks to articulate their contributions with confidence
• Techniques to translate lived experience into influence and impact
• Actionable strategies to sustain resilience without burnout
  

The session balances depth with energy, creating momentum while grounding participants in tools they can apply immediately.

Measurable Outcomes

Following the session, participants are better able to:

• Communicate their value more clearly in meetings, presentations, and leadership conversations
• Share concise, compelling stories that demonstrate resilience, problem-solving, and leadership under pressure
• Apply sustainable resilience practices that support engagement, clarity, and long-term effectiveness
  

Organizations often see this reflected in stronger participation, improved leadership presence, clearer communication, increased engagement, and a stronger sense of connection and belonging.

Why This Program Works ‍

• Connects Black history to modern leadership, communication, and innovation
• Positions resilience as a leadership capability, not a hardship badge
• Signals depth and warmth without performative inspiration
• Aligns directly with organizational outcomes around presence, clarity, sustainable leadership, and community impact
  

Note: This program is based on a proven keynote and has been customized for this audience. It can be delivered as a keynote or as an interactive workshop, offering deeper engagement and participation as desired.

Why Yemi Is the Right Fit for Q2

• Brings a rare, non-performative approach to Black History Month—one that honors Black people without tokenism, fatigue, or ideological pressure
• Offers a transnational Black perspective (U.S., UK, Nigeria, Australia) that avoids collapsing Black history into a single narrative, aligning with Q2’s global, community-centered ethos
• Reframes Black History Month beyond survival narratives to explore sovereignty, wisdom, resilience, and future-making
• Combines systems thinking (engineering) with cultural and emotional intelligence (PhD in cultural transformation)—a strong fit for a fintech audience
• Creates space for both Black employees and allies to engage meaningfully, without shame, blame, or polarization
• Well-suited for organizations navigating complex cultural moments with care, credibility, and depth

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Proposed Presentation (specifically prepared for BHM):

Re-Imagined Black History Month: Nurturing Strength, Wisdom, and Possibility in a Polarized World

With Dr. Yemi Joy Penn

In one of the most politically and culturally polarized moments in modern history, organizations are asking quieter, more meaningful questions.

In February 2026, organizations will ask:

“How do we genuinely honour Black people without tokenism, fatigue, or performative gestures—while creating spaces of strength, dignity, and forward movement?”

Dr. Yemi Penn offers a rare and deeply resonant response.

Not a Monolith: A Global Perspective

Dr. Penn brings a transnational Black experience shaped across:

• The United States (as a U.S. military dependent)
• The United Kingdom (where much of her formal education was undertaken)
• Nigeria (where her foundational and ancestral roots were set)
• Australia (living alongside the world’s oldest continuous Indigenous cultures)
  

This global lens allows her to speak to Black history without collapsing it into a single narrative—acknowledging difference, complexity, migration, class, lineage, and place, while still honoring shared experiences of resilience, contribution, and cultural wisdom.

Black identity, in this framing, is not a fixed category, but a living archive of ingenuity, survival, creativity, and future-making. In this way, its wisdom can be harnessed for all.

Why Dr. Penn

Dr. Yemi Penn reframes Black History Month by moving beyond narratives of survival and struggle to explore the sovereignty, wisdom, and future-making capacity forged through Black experiences—insights that can be shared across cultural experiences.

• Award-winning PhD in cultural transformation
• Engineer by training, bringing systems thinking to human complexity
• Documentary filmmaker exploring cultural silence, rupture, and reconciliation
• Globally trusted voice across corporate, community, and institutional spaces, including the United Nations
  

Her work sits at the intersection of culture, leadership, history, and hope—without slogans, shame, or blame.