Page 13 – SalesTech Star

Spring-Green Enterprises Promotes Matt Jevne to Chief Technology & Marketing Officer

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May 28, 2026

Spring-Green Enterprises Promotes Matt Jevne to Chief Technology & Marketing Officer

Spring-Green Enterprises Inc., parent company to the SpringGreen and Pet Butler franchise brands, is pleased to announce the promotion of Matt Jevne to Chief Technology & Marketing Officer (CTMO), expanding his leadership role following his time as Vice President of Information Technology.

The newly created CTMO role brings the company’s Marketing and Information Technology departments together under one leadership structure to support continued growth, innovation, and franchise success across the SpringGreen and Pet Butler brands.

Since joining Spring-Green five years ago, Jevne has helped strengthen the organization’s technology infrastructure, improve operational scalability, and lead several key modernization initiatives across the business.

“Matt has been a valuable leader for our organization and has consistently demonstrated strong strategic vision and collaboration across departments,” said Ted Hofer, CEO of Spring-Green Enterprises. “As the needs of the business continue to evolve, we are excited to see Matt step into this expanded leadership role.”

In his new position, Jevne will introduce and oversee the execution of strategic initiatives for both Marketing and Information Technology that will align brand strategy, digital platforms, data capabilities, and technology projects in support of franchise system objectives for SpringGreen and Pet Butler.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity and excited for what’s ahead,” said Jevne. “There is a strong team in place across both departments, and I look forward to continuing to build systems, strategies, and experiences that support the long-term success of our brands and franchise owners.”

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Lenovo and Frore Systems collaborate to bring Future Innovation to market with AirJet®Mini

STS News Desk

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May 28, 2026

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Lenovo and Frore Systems collaborate to bring Future Innovation to market with AirJet®Mini

***AirJet Mini, the world’s most advanced solid-state active cooling chip, will be appearing in* *Lenovo products following collaboration with Lenovo’s Innovation Accelerator***

Frore Systems, today announced their collaboration with Lenovo’s Innovation Accelerator to explore collaborating on future innovative products and solutions.”. Frore Systems is excited to be collaborating with Lenovo, contributing to their bold vision to deliver Smarter Technology for All. Lenovo, the world’s largest PC company with a full-stack portfolio of AI-enabled, AI-ready, and AI-optimized devices (PCs, workstations, smartphones, tablets), infrastructure (server, storage, edge, high performance computing and software defined infrastructure), software, solutions, and services, invests in world-changing innovation to build a more equitable, trustworthy, and smarter future for everyone, everywhere.

AirJet is a great example of the way our Innovation Accelerator identifies new and valuable technologies that support our bold vision to deliver Smarter Technology for All.” said Vico Song, General Manager of Lenovo’s Innovation Accelerator. “We are excited to be working with Frore Systems to enhance AI performance and build a smarter future.”

“We are honored to be collaborating with Lenovo’s Innovation Accelerator,” said Seshu Madhavapeddy, CEO and Founder of Frore Systems. “AirJet^®Mini removes thermal barriers, that have traditionally limited ultra-compact systems, allowing consumer products like super slim notebooks, tablets, and wearables to think longer, run faster, and operate in silence. We are excited to bring the many advantages of AirJet solid-state active cooling to some of Lenovo’s premium products, unlocking the new AI Thermal Stack that will enable the next generation of ultra-compact Edge AI devices.”

AirJet Mini continues to receive industry recognition in 2026 including at COMPUTEX with a Best Choice Award, and at CES with its third consecutive Innovation Award, underscoring continued industry recognition for solid-state active cooling technologies that remove thermal limits from next-generation AI systems. These honors recognize AirJet Mini’s outstanding functionality, innovation, and market potential. Frore Systems’ most powerful chip to-date, AirJet Mini G2 replaces conventional fans and heatsinks with a compact chip that removes 7.5W of heat.

AirJet^® – Built for the Rise of AI Reasoning Models

As Edge AI evolves from simple inference toward AI reasoning models and Agentic services, workloads are becoming sustained and compute intensive. These models spend more time “thinking” and “orchestrating,” placing significantly greater thermal demands on edge devices.

AirJet^®Mini G2 is designed specifically to support this shift – enabling processors to sustain higher performance levels without throttling. This advance aligns with Frore’s Law, the company’s long-term vision to double thermal performance every two years – keeping pace with AI compute demand.

AirJet^®Mini G2 Technical Highlights

Heat dissipation: 7.5 W (50% increase over AirJet Mini G1)
Dimensions: just 27mm × 41.5mm × 2.65 mm, supporting ultra-compact form factors
Back pressure: 1,750 Pa (~10x higher than a fan), enabling dustproof and water-resistant devices
Noise level: 21 dBA, enabling silent operation
Design: solid-state, with no moving mechanical parts, delivering long life

AirJet^®Mini G2 generates high-velocity pulsating air jets that efficiently eject heat from compact enclosures, enabling sleek, light, ultra-compact, silent, vibration-free, dustproof, and water-resistant device designs. AirJet enhances performance across numerous devices from notebooks, tablets, Mini-PCs, smartphones, 5G WiFi Hotspots, cameras and SSDs, to the tsunami of consumer and industrial IOT devices.

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Kinaxis Convenes Global Supply Chain Leaders at Kinexions North America to Advance Agentic AI and Decision Orchestration

STS News Desk

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May 28, 2026

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Kinaxis Convenes Global Supply Chain Leaders at Kinexions North America to Advance Agentic AI and Decision Orchestration

Annual conference brings customers, partners, and industry leaders together to explore how enterprises are turning decisions into coordinated action

Kinaxis®, a global leader in end-to-end supply chain planning and orchestration, is set to host Kinexions North America kicking off next week from June 1-3 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The company’s flagship conference will bring together global supply chain, business and technology leaders for three days of product innovation, customer insights, and peer networking as Kinaxis continues to advance its focus on AI-driven decision making across the supply chain industry.

“Supply chains don’t struggle because of a lack of data; they struggle because decisions are disconnected,” said Razat Gaurav, CEO of Kinaxis.

This year’s event will spotlight how organizations are applying agentic AI and orchestration, moving beyond insight to execution, and increasingly from decisions to coordinated action. Speakers from global organizations including Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Unilever, British American Tobacco, Qualcomm, ExxonMobil, The Hershey Company, Scotts Miracle-Gro, and Veolia, will join Kinaxis executives to share how they are navigating disruption and improving operational outcomes.

Kinaxis CEO, Razat Gaurav is set to deliver his first Kinexions keynote alongside Chief Product Officer, Andrew Bell and Chief of Agentic Solutions, Manik Sharma who will outline the company’s latest advancements in agentic capabilities and the continued evolution of the Maestro™ platform and ecosystem.

Key themes of the conference include:

Agentic AI in practice: How Maestro Agents support decision-making across planning and execution, enabling teams to act with speed while maintaining control
End-to-end orchestration: Connecting decisions across functions, partners, and time horizons to reduce latency and improve alignment
From insight to coordinated action: Customer-led sessions demonstrating how global organizations are turning real-time visibility into measurable operational outcomes

Those unable to attend in person can experience the opening keynote in real time as it is livestreamed globally on June 2 via LinkedIn Live.

“Supply chains don’t struggle because of a lack of data; they struggle because decisions are disconnected,” said Razat Gaurav, CEO of Kinaxis. “What’s changing is that AI is no longer just informing decisions; it’s becoming part of how decisions are made and executed. That requires a way to bring people, data, and AI together so decisions can be aligned and acted on in an orchestrated way across operations. As organizations introduce agentic AI, there is an opportunity for us to transform our ways of working and create a shift from reacting to change to operating with intelligence and continuously adapting as conditions evolve. I’m looking forward to diving deeper into this topic at Kinexions.”

The event will also feature keynote perspectives from Peter Hinssen, a bestselling author and expert on leading through constant disruption, and Michelle Mace Curran, former U.S. Air Force Thunderbird pilot, who will share lessons on decision-making under pressure. Their sessions will complement a broader agenda of customer discussions, expert panels, and product deep dives focused on how supply chain leaders are building more adaptable operations.

Kinexions is supported by partners including Genpact, Accenture, EY, Scott Sheldon, 4flow, Bristlecone, Deloitte, Google Cloud, PlanetTogether, Microsoft, PwC, and Workday and will feature networking experiences and live programming throughout the event, including a performance by globally renowned DJ and music icon Steve Aoki.

Supply chain leaders face persistent disruption, fragmented data, and pressure to act quickly without sacrificing accuracy or accountability. While many have invested in AI, most have yet to operationalize it across the workflows that determine how supply chains respond to change or trust it to drive coordinated, governed action. Kinexions offers a front-row seat to the future where AI, orchestration and execution converge to deliver real outcomes that matter.

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Elastic Path and ReFiBuy Partner to Optimize Product Catalogs for AI Shopping

STS News Desk

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May 28, 2026

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Elastic Path and ReFiBuy Partner to Optimize Product Catalogs for AI Shopping

Elastic Path merchants can now evaluate, enrich, and monitor how AI shopping agents interpret their product catalogs

Elastic Path, the AI-ready commerce platform built for B2B, and ReFiBuy, the leading Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO) platform, announced a technology partnership that integrates ReFiBuy’s Commerce Intelligence Engine with Elastic Path Composable Commerce. The integration brings catalog intelligence directly into Elastic Path merchants’ commerce workflows, enabling them to continuously optimize complex product catalogs for AI-powered shopping.

As AI shopping agents become a new path to purchase, everything starts with the catalog. The structure, completeness, and machine-readability of product data now determine whether a brand’s products are understood, recommended, and ultimately purchased through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, and other agentic shopping experiences. This pulls the center of gravity away from the storefront and into the catalog itself. When the catalog is complete, context-rich, and well-structured at the SKU level, AI shopping agents can represent products accurately.

The Elastic Path and ReFiBuy integration addresses this need by connecting catalog intelligence directly to the commerce stack. Through this partnership, Elastic Path customers can use a pre-built integration to ReFiBuy’s closed-loop Commerce Intelligence Engine, which operates across three core areas:

Enrichment: ReFiBuy ingests product data from Elastic Path’s Product Experience Manager, identifies attribute and content gaps, and generates agentic-ready titles, descriptions, expanded attributes, and Q&As, aligned to each brand’s voice and supported by human-in-the-loop review.

Distribution: Enriched, agentic-ready product data is delivered to AI shopping engines and synced back into Elastic Path, ensuring the commerce platform always reflects the most current, optimized catalog data.

Monitoring: ReFiBuy continuously evaluates SKU-level eligibility across AI shopping environments, tracks visibility and competitive positioning, and identifies where products need more structure, context, or completeness to perform.

“Elastic Path has built one of the most flexible and developer-friendly commerce platforms in the market, and that API-first architecture is exactly what makes this integration so powerful,” said Scot Wingo, CEO of ReFiBuy. “By connecting ReFiBuy’s Commerce Intelligence Engine directly to Elastic Path, we’re giving their merchants the ability to continuously optimize and monitor product data for AI shopping agents as they rapidly become a new path to discovery and purchase.”

The integration leverages the API-first architecture of both platforms, allowing Elastic Path merchants to bring Agentic Commerce Optimization directly into their existing commerce stack and workflows.

“Nowhere are the stakes higher than in B2B, where intricate product relationships, negotiated price books, and configuration rules can’t be left to inference,” said Bryan House, CEO of Elastic Path. “Elastic Path expresses that complexity cleanly through discrete APIs, giving merchants the structured, governed catalog data that AI shopping engines demand. Partnering with ReFiBuy extends that foundation with continuous optimization, so our customers’ product truth doesn’t just live in their commerce platform, it performs across wherever buyers now begin their journeys.”

Together, the partnership enables Elastic Path merchants to manage complex product catalogs while preparing them to perform in a new era of AI-driven discovery and purchase journeys. The ReFiBuy integration for Elastic Path Composable Commerce will be available in early access in the second half of 2026. Elastic Path customers interested in learning more can visit refibuy.ai or contact their Elastic Path customer success manager.

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Business SMS Is No Longer Just a Campaigns Channel — TextUs Builds for the Full SaaS Revenue Funnel

STS News Desk

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May 28, 2026

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Business SMS Is No Longer Just a Campaigns Channel — TextUs Builds for the Full SaaS Revenue Funnel

As SMS adoption expands across the entire customer journey, TextUs introduces a suite of AI-powered capabilities designed to turn every conversation into a measurable revenue signal

TextUs, the leading business text messaging platform for sales, recruiting, and customer engagement teams, is advancing a suite of platform capabilities that reflect a fundamental shift in how SaaS companies are deploying SMS: not as a one-way broadcast tool, but as an always-on, full-funnel revenue channel.

According to TextUs’s 2026 SMS Engagement Report, 79% of SMS users say the channel outperforms email, and top-performing teams are seeing 1:1 response rates exceeding 56%. SMS has quietly matured into a core GTM motion — and one that now demands the same intelligence infrastructure teams expect from their CRM and automation stack.

TextUs is building to meet that moment across three areas. Contact Intelligence 1.0 uses AI to automatically score every contact’s engagement (Cold, Warm, or Hot) based on their responses and track their position across a six-stage relationship funnel, from first touch to advocacy. Giving reps a clear signal on who to prioritize without any manual work. Smart Delivery keeps high-volume outreach out of spam filters with real-time message quality scoring, AI-powered rewrites, and automated opt-out monitoring. And deep Salesforce integration ensures every conversation, stage transition, and engagement signal flows directly into the CRM — closing the attribution gap that has made it difficult to connect texting activity to pipeline outcomes.

“The teams who treat SMS as a funnel producer and mover, with the right AI, compliance infrastructure, and tech stack integrations will outperform those who continually sit on legacy channels like email for their communication” said Andrew Davis, Senior Vice President of Marketing.

TextUs is the leading business SMS platform built for sales, recruiting, and customer engagement teams. Trusted by thousands of organizations, TextUs enables real-time, two-way text conversations at scale — with the automation, analytics, and integrations teams need to connect faster and convert more.

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City of Santa Monica Selects HdL Companies to Support Revenue Administration Efforts

STS News Desk

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May 28, 2026

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City of Santa Monica Selects HdL Companies to Support Revenue Administration Efforts

Expanded partnership to help strengthen local revenue integrity, improve compliance, and support efficient public service delivery

The City of Santa Monica recently contracted with HdL Companies for Business License Compliance, Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) and Parking Administration and Audits.

Through the agreement, HdL will support the City’s locally administered revenue programs with services designed to improve compliance, strengthen reporting, and help ensure businesses and taxpayers are treated fairly and consistently. HdL’s approach to business license focuses on education-first outreach, while its lodging tax services help local governments administer hotel and short-term rental tax programs with stronger visibility, audits, and ongoing compliance support.

Santa Monica is a dynamic community with a diverse business, visitor, and parking environment. “We are pleased to support the City with services that promote fairness, transparency, and strong revenue stewardship,” said Andy Nickerson, President and CEO of HdL Companies. “Our team looks forward to helping Santa Monica administer these programs efficiently, support compliance through clear communication, and protect the local revenues the community depends on.”

The agreement brings together multiple local revenue functions under a coordinated support model. HdL will support the City with a unified approach to administration, compliance, audits, reporting, and taxpayer communication; helping staff manage these revenue functions more efficiently while maintaining clear City oversight. By aligning support across business license, TOT, and parking revenues, the partnership is designed to strengthen program integrity, reduce administrative burden, and ensure local revenues are managed effectively for the community.

The Santa Monica contract reflects a broader need among local governments to manage existing revenue programs with greater consistency, transparency, and accountability. As cities balance service demands, staffing constraints, and evolving business activity, structured compliance and administration programs help leaders monitor local revenues and plan responsibly.

HdL Companies helps local governments safeguard and grow revenues that sustain essential services. Our partners strengthen trusted compliance, protect municipal revenue, and reduce program costs to better serve their communities. More than 900 cities, counties, and special districts rely on HdL for sales tax analytics, local tax administration, economic development support, and other revenue solutions. Since 1983, the company has driven $4B in recovered revenue for local agencies.

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Arq Strengthens Executive Team with Appointment of Shimon Steinmetz as Chief Financial Officer

STS News Desk

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May 28, 2026

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Arq Strengthens Executive Team with Appointment of Shimon Steinmetz as Chief Financial Officer

Seasoned finance executive enhances financial leadership and supports long-term strategy

Arq, a producer of activated carbon and other environmentally efficient carbon products for use in purification and sustainable materials, announced the appointment of Shimon Steinmetz as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Mr. Steinmetz brings more than two decades of corporate finance, capital markets and operational leadership to Arq. He is a seasoned financial executive with a proven track record of driving financial strategy, operational excellence, and value creation at both public and private companies. He brings deep experience leading finance functions across complex, high-growth environments, including prior CFO roles at Finjan Holdings, where he successfully guided the company through its transition to a publicly listed entity, and Vesta, a global PE-backed FinTech. Mr. Steinmetz is well-versed in all aspects of public company financial leadership, including SEC reporting, SOX compliance, capital markets, investor relations, and strategic planning. Mr. Steinmetz began his career in investment banking at Salomon Smith Barney and Goldman Sachs and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

“I am thrilled to welcome Shimon to the Arq team as part of the broader organizational restructuring Arq has undertaken to strengthen operational efficiency and financial leadership,” said Bob Rasmus, Chief Executive Officer of Arq. “He brings exactly the kind of hands-on financial leadership and operational expertise we need as we execute our growth strategy. I am confident he will make an immediate impact and help position Arq for long-term, sustainable success.”

“I am excited to join Arq at this important stage of the Company’s evolution,” said Mr. Steinmetz. “I look forward to working with Bob and the team to strengthen Arq’s financial foundation and help drive the Company’s long-term growth strategy.”

Arq also announced the issuance of inducement equity awards to Mr. Steinmetz in connection with his appointment, to be granted upon the effective date of his appointment. The inducement equity awards consist of (i) an award of 250,000 restricted stock awards (“RSAs”), and (ii) an award of 150,000 performance share units (“PSUs”). Of the RSA award, 75,000 RSAs will vest on the second anniversary of the grant date and 175,000 RSAs will vest on the third anniversary of the grant date. The PSU award will vest in three equal tranches of 50,000 PSUs upon the Company’s common stock achieving a 30-day volume weighted average price (“VWAP”) of $8.00, $10.00, and $15.00, respectively, in each case subject to Mr. Steinmetz’s continued employment with the Company and prior to the third anniversary of the grant date. The award was approved in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4).

Additionally, the Company announced that Stacia Hansen has resigned from her role as Chief Accounting Officer, effective as of June 12, 2026. Hansen’s resignation was not the result of any disagreement with the Company, its management, or any member of the Board of Directors on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies, practices, or financial reporting.

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Origins Network Appoints Robles Carlos as CEO, Doubling Down on Blockchain Infrastructure and AI-Driven User Growth

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May 28, 2026

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Origins Network Appoints Robles Carlos as CEO, Doubling Down on Blockchain Infrastructure and AI-Driven User Growth

Origins Network, a Layer 1 blockchain that recently closed an $8M funding round backed by top-tier venture capital firms including Animoca Brands and TB Ventures—alongside strategic support from AWS Cloud and Tencent Cloud—has officially appointed Robles Carlos as its new Chief Executive Officer. Concurrently, the project reaffirmed its commitment to advancing verifiable computing infrastructure, accelerating cross-chain interoperability, scaling decentralized compute, and deepening AI integration.

Former McKinsey Consultant Steps Into the Spotlight. Carlos Manuel Publicly Acknowledges CEO Role for the First Time
Origins Network has announced the appointment of Carlos as its new C EO, effective immediately, to oversee the company’s strategic direction and global operations. Following a period focused on building its underlying protocol and infrastructure, Origins Network has finalized its foundational architecture. Carlos’s appointment signals the company’s transition into its next phase of development: shifting from an infrastructure-driven approach to global market expansion.

A McKinsey & Company alumnus, Carlos holds a multidisciplinary background in international political economy and software engineering, specializing in data-driven organizational transformation. While he has long been deeply involved in the project behind the scenes—utilizing structured frameworks to solve complex problems and leveraging data to support decision-making—this marks his first public appearance as CEO to outline Origins Network’s strategic roadmap.

As Origins Network targets international growth, Carlos’s linguistic capabilities offer a distinct structural advantage. Proficient in six languages, including English, Mandarin, and Korean, he is positioned to bridge multiple core markets and accelerate Origins Network’s global rollout.

$8M Raise Closed. Origins Network Secures Strategic Support from AWS and Tencent Cloud

Origins Network recently announced the completion of an $8M funding round, with participation from Animoca Brands, TB Ventures, Candaq Fintech, Castrum Capital, and Coinvestor Ventures, alongside various family offices and angel investors. AWS Cloud and Tencent Cloud have also joined as strategic partners, providing direct computing infrastructure support for the network’s ongoing expansion. Upon taking the helm, Carlos clearly defined the project’s mandate: “What Origins Network is here to solve is the most critical infrastructure gap of the AI era—making compute verifiable, making data transparent, and making every execution auditable.”

Native Cross-Chain Bridge Goes Live Alongside Infrastructure Upgrades

Alongside the CEO appointment, Origins Network announced the successful rollout of multiple core infrastructure updates. A native cross-chain bridge is now live, allowing users to transfer assets across ecosystems directly via the Origins Network web platform at faster speeds, without relying on third-party tools. Additionally, an upgraded USDT authorization verification system has been deployed to resolve transaction failures caused by on-chain status delays during periods of network congestion.

These updates build upon Origins Network’s foundational architecture. Origins Network is the first Layer 1 blockchain designed from the ground up for autonomous AI agents, running on a Proof of Computation consensus mechanism. Its three-tier identity architecture (User, Agent, Session) enables precise, granular control over the authorization scope of every Agent action, with permissions automatically expiring once a task is completed. The testnet is currently live, supported by ecosystem partnerships with multiple infrastructure providers.

Bridging the AI Trust Gap With Decentralized Infrastructure

While the rapid pace of AI development is evident, its foundational infrastructure issues have yet to be meaningfully addressed. Today, computing power is concentrated in the hands of a few cloud giants, leaving data usage, model execution, and output generation as a black box for end users. As AI increasingly permeates critical sectors like finance, healthcare, and governance, this opacity ceases to be a mere technical issue and becomes a systemic risk.

Carlos noted that the primary challenge facing the AI industry today is not a lack of technical capability, but the absence of a foundational trust layer. Under existing architectures, it is impossible to verify who provides the compute, how data is processed, or whether an Agent’s execution occurred exactly as claimed. Users are left with no choice but to trust—and trust itself has become a liability.

In its next phase, Origins Network will accelerate core infrastructure upgrades, expand decentralized compute capacity, and broaden AI integration across the entire network, transitioning this architecture from the testnet into the real world.

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Gartner Survey Finds Consumers Want AI Shopping Help, But Not AI Purchase Decisions

STS News Desk

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May 28, 2026

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Gartner Survey Finds Consumers Want AI Shopping Help, But Not AI Purchase Decisions

With Only 11% of U.S. Consumers Willing to Let AI Make Purchase Decisions, Marketers Should Prioritize AI Shopping Tools That Support Research and Comparison

As brands race to invest in agentic commerce, consumer willingness to let AI make purchase decisions topped out at 11% across lower-stakes categories, such as personal care and household supplies, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

The findings suggest consumers are more receptive to AI shopping tools that support discovery and research than those that make purchase decisions on their behalf.

A Gartner survey of 322 U.S. consumers in January 2026 found greater openness to AI tools that help narrow product choices: 31% were willing to allow AI to narrow choices for household supplies purchases, and 28% were willing to do so for personal electronics purchases.

“Consumers are not looking to outsource shopping decisions to AI,” said Kate Muhl, VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “They want AI to help them find better information, compare prices, identify deals and narrow choices, while keeping final decision-making control for themselves.”

Marketers should focus AI shopping investments on tools that help consumers research products, compare prices, surface deals and narrow choices, rather than fully autonomous shopping agents.

Trust and accuracy remain barriers to broader adoption. A Gartner survey of 846 U.S. consumers conducted November through December 2025 found that early adopters still encountered friction when using AI for shopping. Among consumers who used AI while shopping for a recent purchase, 54% said they had to double-check the accuracy of all information GenAI tools provided, and 62% said information from GenAI tools ended up being a waste of their time.

“Accuracy is now a brand issue,” said Muhl. “If consumers believe AI shopping tools create more work by requiring them to verify every recommendation, they will not see those tools as convenient or valuable. Marketers must prioritize transparent, reliable information, especially around price, product fit and recommendations.”

Consumers’ growing exposure to GenAI does not necessarily translate into comfort with AI-driven shopping decisions. Seventy-two percent of consumers said “generative AI appears in my internet and app use whether I asked for it or not.”

“Consumers are encountering GenAI more often, but passive exposure should not be mistaken for active adoption,” said Muhl. “The brands that earn consumer trust will be those that use AI to enhance consumer control, not replace it.”

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BCR Cyber Hires Tasha Cornish as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

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May 28, 2026

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BCR Cyber Hires Tasha Cornish as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

BCR Cyber, a leading provider of comprehensive cybersecurity training and job placement services, announced the hiring of Tasha Cornish as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships.

In this position, Cornish will work closely with BCR Cyber’s executive team to develop and manage high-impact partnerships with both private and public sector organizations. She will collaborate with policymakers, government officials, and industry stakeholders to help advance strategic initiatives that support the company’s long-term growth and workforce development mission.

Tasha’s experience in building effective teams, driving organizational growth, and designing innovative programs will be instrumental to our continued expansion statewide and nationwide.”

— Michael Spector, President and CEO, BCR Cyber

“Tasha has spent years in the cybersecurity industry and understands the need for and importance of our mission to provide experiential IT and cyber training, education, and employment opportunities for thousands of students and professionals in Maryland,” says Michael Spector, President and CEO, BCR Cyber. “Her experience in building effective teams, driving organizational growth, and designing innovative programs will be instrumental to our continued expansion statewide and nationwide.”

Prior to joining BCR Cyber, Cornish served as Executive Director of the Cybersecurity Association, Inc., a Maryland-based 501(c)(6) nonprofit dedicated to building the state’s cybersecurity industry. She also served as Executive Director of St. Mary’s Outreach Center, a non-profit organization focused on helping older adults live self-sufficiently. In both leadership roles, Cornish increased membership revenues, launched workforce training coalitions, secured funding, and developed operational infrastructure initiatives. Cornish earned an M.S.P.H. degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a bachelor’s degree from Cedar College.

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AirJet Mini, the world’s most advanced solid-state active cooling chip, will be appearing in Lenovo products following collaboration with Lenovo’s Innovation Accelerator

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Annual conference brings customers, partners, and industry leaders together to explore how enterprises are turning decisions into coordinated action

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Elastic Path merchants can now evaluate, enrich, and monitor how AI shopping agents interpret their product catalogs

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

As SMS adoption expands across the entire customer journey, TextUs introduces a suite of AI-powered capabilities designed to turn every conversation into a measurable revenue signal

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Expanded partnership to help strengthen local revenue integrity, improve compliance, and support efficient public service delivery

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Seasoned finance executive enhances financial leadership and supports long-term strategy

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With Only 11% of U.S. Consumers Willing to Let AI Make Purchase Decisions, Marketers Should Prioritize AI Shopping Tools That Support Research and Comparison

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***AirJet Mini, the world’s most advanced solid-state active cooling chip, will be appearing in* *Lenovo products following collaboration with Lenovo’s Innovation Accelerator***