Erica Ishida believes in the power of resilience, intention, culture, strategy, technology, and disciplined execution, in building healthy organizations. She has more than years of experience in organization design, change management, leadership development, and operational excellence, to produce business redesigns and cultural transformations. She has worked in industries spanning professional services, technology, telecommunications, venture development, and non-profit.

Erica is a founder, owner, and CEO of AI23, a company committed to democratizing GenAI and unlocking human potential. She is also the CEO of Yellow Cedar Group, a firm that focuses on building healthy, connected, human centered teams and organizations that are designed to outperform their competition.

Erica has also been a trusted advisor to other CEOs, both as an internal employee and as an external advisor and coach. She has worked with a diverse group of clients, from C-level leaders to high potentials, across a variety of industries. She has dedicated her career to designing scalable organizations and processes, building managed cultures, coaching high-potential leaders, building highly effective teams, and managing change. She has deep expertise in coaching, organization design, strategic planning, product and service innovation, change management, leadership as well as sales and client services.

Prior to AI23 and Yellow Cedar Group, Erica was the President of Apple Growth Partners (AGP), an accounting and advisory firm in NE Ohio. Prior to AGP, Erica was the Chief Operating Officer at Destination Cleveland; CEO of Leading Edge Alliance, the largest international Accounting Industry Association; founder and COO of LaunchVector, a technology start-up in Cleveland, OH.; and Chief of Staff at AXS/Veritix where she led the integration effort for the AXS and Veritix acquisition and integrations. Erica was also the National Director of Business Development for BDO, USA, implementing the structure, process and systems for BDO’s national Business Development function.

Erica is certified as an Executive Coach, as well as in Neuroscience for leadership and business. She has experience in start-up and high growth environments as well as Fortune 500 organizations. Erica also occasionally teaches and coaches courses through Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Oh.

Central to Erica’s life are her loved ones (human and canine), using food as medicine, exercising, and spending time in nature. She is also committed to the practices of martial arts and meditation, as well as and conservationist efforts.

Honors BA, Psychology, The University of Michigan
Masters in Positive Organization Design (MPOD), Case Western Reserve University (CWRU)
Certified in Coaching through Emotional Intelligence, CWRU
Certified in Neuroscience for Business, MIT
FEMA – Certified in Disaster Recovery Planning

Michael (Mike) Rojas is a founder, owner, and the Chief Technology Officer of AI23.

Michael Rojas is also the Chief Innovation Officer at AXS, a global leader in ticketing, marketing, and data technology. With over 30 years of experience as a technologist, executive, and entrepreneur, Michael leads a team committed to pushing the boundaries of emerging technologies and exploring new revenue opportunities for clients, fans, and AXS.

Mike collaborates and advises on AI strategy with organizations such as Amazon, and the NFL. Mike has been pioneering in the field of GenAI for several years, including, deploying a trained AI model within the AXS, a global leader in ticketing, marketing, and data technology, resulting in customer service scores that exceed industry averages, while increasing retention of call center staff.

As a seasoned industry veteran, Michael has an extensive background in product development, leadership strategy, engineering sciences, and system architecture. He gained valuable entrepreneurial experience as CEO of Ayalogic, Inc., one of the first companies to receive funding from JumpStart Inc. His innovative work at Ayalogic earned him accolades from Governor Taft, who called him the “Thomas Edison of Ohio.”

Michael’s professional journey includes a significant tenure at NEC America, where his innovative contributions were instrumental in transforming NEC from a minor player in the US market to a formidable competitor, challenging industry giants like Lucent and contributing to the decline of Nortel.

Holding over 30 patents in the fields of complex software systems, voice and video technologies, as well as identity and access control systems, Michael has established himself as a leading figure in technological innovation. He currently resides in Canton, OH with his wife and their 4 sons.

Aaron Oliver is a seasoned technology leader with over 20 years of experience in software engineering. Throughout his career, Aaron has demonstrated a keen ability to transform software organizations into high-functioning teams that drive impactful results. With a pragmatic and results-driven approach, Aaron specializes in coaching and developing engineering and product teams, strategic planning, and aligning technology initiatives with business objectives.

As Vice President of Software Engineering at Lunchbox.io, Aaron was tasked with ensuring faster onboarding, reducing defects, and maturing the software organization to be enterprise-ready. During his tenure, Aaron led a team of 30 software engineers, DevOps engineers, and QA engineers, collaborating closely with product management to define backlog prioritization and enhance engineering throughput.

Prior to Lunchbox.io, Aaron served as Vice President of Software Engineering at Nextbite, where he played a pivotal role in growing the engineering team from a handful of engineers to over 30, focusing on third-party integrations, core functionality, and e-commerce platforms. Under his leadership, the team saw a remarkable 25% increase in throughput and the successful implementation of incident response practices and flag-based deployment processes.

Before joining Nextbite, Aaron held various leadership roles, including Senior Director of Development at AXS Ticketing and Manager of Web Development at American Greetings Interactive. In these roles, he led cross-functional teams, drove process improvements, and championed agile methodologies to deliver high-quality software solutions.

Aaron holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Lehigh University, with minors in Economics and Philosophy. He is passionate about fostering innovation, continuous improvement, and building collaborative, high-performing teams that deliver exceptional results.

Ryan is a founder, owner, and Chief Engineer at AI23. He is responsible for steering the software engineering and architectural efforts aligned with the utilization of generative AI technologies. Additionally, he oversees the development of custom solutions that integrate advanced computational models and AI to enhance product capabilities and operational efficiency both internally, for AI23, and its clients.

Ryan is an independent software consultant with over 20 years of experience as an engineer, sales executive, and entrepreneur. Ryan specializes in .NET and Python backend development and has engineered custom data integrations for clients such as the NFL Ticket Exchange, StubHub, NCAA Final Four, SeatGeek, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Cleveland Guardians.

Shortly after receiving his M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toledo, Ryan developed and sold an automated medical reporting solution for cardiologists and vascular surgeons that has led him down his current career path as a software engineer and entrepreneur. Ryan holds 4 patents in the areas of cloud-based management systems and video processing technology.