EXECUTIVE  ·  BOARD MEMBER  ·  INVESTOR  ·  SPEAKER

ABOUT

I translate what’s coming next into something people can actually use.

Twenty years inside the places where new technology meets real businesses, real budgets and real people. My work is to make that meeting useful instead of frightening.

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BIOGRAPHY

Iliana Oris Valiente, CPA, CA, is an accomplished corporate executive, innovation and emerging tech pioneer, startup investor, respected board member, published author, and sought-after global public speaker. She has been featured in various media outlets, including television, radio, and print, from The Financial Times to Bloomberg and beyond.

She is the Managing Director and Head of the Americas Innovation Centres at Accenture, where she works with senior executives and boards to support their strategic transformation journeys, with a particular emphasis on artificial intelligence, the future of work, and global talent mobility. She leads multi-disciplinary teams across design, data, and technology, focusing on emergent areas such as AI, metaverse, and cross-industry initiatives, and the work those teams deliver has driven more than 500 million dollars in client impact.

Her frameworks are built in the open and tested on herself first. She is the creator of The Potted Plant Theory, a framework grounded in neuroscience for how people grow inside organizations, which has been shared with more than a thousand executives.

A CBP (Certified Bitcoin Professional), Iliana is widely recognized for her trailblazing contributions to the blockchain industry. She has advised corporations, government leaders, regulators, and startups as a translator between the Web2 and Web3 worlds.

She wrote the chapter on permissioned versus permissionless blockchain in Blockchain in Financial Markets and Beyond, edited by Ron Quaranta, and her writing on digital assets has appeared in CoinDesk, Nasdaq and the Blockchain Research Institute. She is featured in You to the Power of Two: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Identic AI, published by BenBella Books, and writes Translations, her newsletter on the shifts that leaders are being asked to absorb.

She serves on several boards, including Sunnybrook Hospital and CPA Ontario, where she brings her expertise in innovation strategy, governance, and societal impact. She is also active in the early-stage startup ecosystem as a mentor, venture capital investor, and fund advisor, actively supporting emerging fund managers.

She is the founder and chair of The Flexible Class, a private membership community for people who live and work across several cities.

MISSION

The world is changing fast, and it doesn’t have to be scary.

Most people meet new technology as something being done to them. I want them to meet it as something they can pick up and use.

That means saying the useful thing rather than the impressive thing, showing the working rather than the conclusion, and leaving people more capable than they were before I walked in. It applies the same way to a board room, a conference stage and a coffee with someone twenty years behind me.

MAKE IT UNDERSTANDABLE

No jargon, no hand waving. If a leader can’t explain it back to their own team, the explanation failed.

KEEP IT HUMAN

Every technology question is eventually a people question. I start from the people and work outward to the tools.

LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN

The rooms I sit in weren’t built for people who look like me. Part of the job is making sure the next person gets in faster.

BOARDS AND ADVISORY

Where I sit, and what I am there to do.

Governance roles across health care, the accounting profession, alongside advisory and mentorship in early-stage technology.

Sunnybrook Hospital Board Member. Innovation strategy, governance and societal impact at one of Canada's largest academic health sciences centres. Board
CPA Ontario Board Member. Standards, public trust and the future of the accounting profession as AI reshapes the work. Board
Creative Destruction Lab Mentor. Working with founders building science and technology companies at the earliest stage. Also active as a venture capital investor and fund advisor to emerging fund managers. Advisory

Press, podcasts and publications

Creativity Squared Episode 53. A.I. Chief of StaffPodcast
Financial Times AI and Work: Can I send a chatbot to that meeting?Podcast
The Travel Transformation Podcast Episode 72. Interview with Iliana Oris ValientePodcast
Being [at Work] Episode 165. Introducing the Potted Plant Theory, a self-exploration tool to highlight your requirements for being your bestPodcast
Connected Intelligence with Sonia Sennik EP703. Iliana Oris Valiente on Future ProofingPodcast
Lifetime at Work Episode 47. A new take on how to grow faster at work and in your lifePodcast
Disruption Now Episode 162. I, Human 2025Podcast
Working Women Mentor Episode 55. Why AI is not a threat to your career and how you can evolve in any industry with innovation and by designPodcast
VintheUniverse AI Clones with Iliana Oris ValientePodcast
The Rise of the Globally Mobile Episode 230. The rise of the globally mobilePodcast
Making Waves Episode 4Podcast