Joanna Doven
AI Horizons
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info@aihorizonspgh.comabout Joanna Doven
Joanna Doven is the Executive Director of The AI Strike Team (AIST) – a collaborative, action-oriented initiative that catalyzes strategic investments to signal that Pittsburgh is ‘open for AI.’ She is a strategic development expert and founder of Premo Consultants, specializing in AI-based place and positioning strategies that poise cities for success in the New AI Economy.
Joanna Doven, one of the U.S.’s youngest big city mayoral press secretaries, led stakeholder relations and communications for Pittsburgh’s 2009 G-20 Economic Summit and in 2013 founded Premo Consultants. A graduate of the world’s #1 AI school, Carnegie Mellon University, she has since helped some of the world’s largest companies and prominent real estate developers formulate game-changing ideas that resulted in record government funding, growth-generating strategic partnerships, and national media exposure. With a crisis communications background, Joanna thrives on creating out-of-the-box pivoting strategies. This has led to her success in working at the intersection of development and innovation where she serves as a senior strategic advisor to innovators bringing accelerated benefits and return on investment. She has recently partnered with leading urbanist Bruce Katz, authoring AI-based pieces in Governing Magazine, among other publications. She advises leaders of the region’s most transformational projects — including Downtown Pittsburgh’s most pivotal $200M conversion project.
In 2023, Joanna reshaped her consulting practice to help cities, developers and institutions remake themselves in the post-Covid world, including repositioning Downtowns for growth and advising how cities can lead in the new artificial intelligence economy. Her work as a strategist for Walnut Capital, the developer of Pittsburgh’s 34-acre Bakery Square development that’s home to Google and over 15 AI companies led to the reshaping of a commercial real estate and workforce strategy positioning a new AI Avenue Corridor.
Her expertise in strategic communications and partnerships led to the creation of an AI Working Group in Pittsburgh comprised of 20 stakeholders including the world’s #1 AI school, Carnegie Mellon, civic and nonprofit leader, and large and emerging tech companies including Duolingo, Google. This effort led to her organizing the inaugural AI Horizons Summit headlined by Governor Josh Shapiro and CNN’s Laurie Segall, the founder of Mostly Human Media. Notably, Joanna helped steer the signing of a historic partnership leading to Pittsburgh as Nvidia’s first “AI Tech Community.”
An expert positioner and energetic leader, Joanna’s no-barriers approach in helping clients unearth opportunities through big thinking, informing and leveraging deep governmental, corporate, civic and media relationships has earned her company’s respect from renowned business, government and nonprofit leaders.