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Satu Salminen
Satu Salminen is VP, AI HR Transformation Lead at ZoomInfo, a role she stepped into in mid-2025 after leading the company's global Talent Management & Development function. She brings more than 20 years of learning and development experience, having led L&D and manager development at GitLab, Meta, Pure Storage, and Polycom, with earlier roles at Nokia and Kone.
Ten Hours of Hands-On Time Is Often Enough to Cross Into Confidence
Satu's title change itself tells a story: HR titles across the industry are stretching to include words like "transformation" as people leaders are asked to architect enterprise-wide AI change, not just support it from the sidelines. At ZoomInfo, her team started early, securing enterprise AI licenses and building a genuinely safe environment for experimentation rather than mandating adoption from the top down. Her specific technique for people who say they're "not technical": she meets them exactly where they are, shares her screen, and walks through real prompts together, watching for what she calls the light-bulb moment. Her clearest data point from doing this repeatedly is that roughly ten hours of hands-on time is often enough for someone to cross from curiosity to genuine confidence with AI tools.
Topics Satu speaks on
- Why HR titles are evolving to include "transformation"
- Building safe environments for AI experimentation
- Meeting non-technical employees where they are with AI
- How much hands-on time it actually takes to build AI confidence
- Manager and leadership development at scale
Sessions with Achieve
Satu is a featured presenter on the Achieve webcast "Skills@work 2025: Impact Accelerator #2 - Human-Driven, AI-Supported: The Future of Skills Activation" (October 15, 2025), alongside Matt Moog of Career Bird and Taylor Bradley of Turing. The session covers how organizations can activate skills strategy in a way that's driven by people and supported, not replaced, by AI.
Connect
Want more on what it takes to build genuine AI confidence, not just AI access? Learn more about the Achieve Leadership Network.