Her Story
About Lilian
Lilian Tata serves as an artificial intelligence governance lead or consultant in Dallas, Texas. With 12 years in technology and 4 years focused on AI governance, she assists organizations in using AI responsibly, especially Agentic AI, through auditing for bias, hallucination, and transparency issues, developing governance policies based on regulatory contexts, and creating graph models to ensure accountability. Her career began as a diplomat for Cameroon at the United Nations, where research into cyber diplomacy led her to pursue further education. She earned a Master's degree at Clark University on a Fulbright Scholarship, completed a conflict negotiation program at Harvard, and obtained her PhD from the University of the Cumberlands with an AAUW scholarship after transferring from Rutgers. Prior roles include project manager and solutions architect working with cloud technologies. Tata is a member of Women in Cloud, Women in AI, and founder of Her Table Network. She contributes to the One Child, One Future program in Cameroon and attributes her success to hard work, consistency, opportunity identification, and support from her partner. Her core values include ethics, trust, excellence, integrity, faith, and family.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lilian
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to hard work and consistency. Nothing of mine ever came easy. I've worked hard about my whole life. I've been able to identify some good opportunities as well that led me to where I am today, and then just listening to my partner give me the direction I need, because he actually helps out a lot in coaching and giving me the advice and the drive I need to move forward.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
There's really nothing out there you cannot learn and do. I try to do to myself is to challenge the best, latest version of me. Be better than who I was yesterday.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I'll tell her really to not limit herself to opportunities and to learning more. Don't limit yourself. And don't set boundaries around what you can do or cannot do. Identify a path you want to follow, so I tell them to always, first of all, start by defining a goal, and then walk back towards achieving that goal.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge right now is companies racing to deploy AI, AI agents, and automations without knowing the implications of what happens when it goes wrong. Who is responsible? Who is accountable? The problem is the people watching and building the AI because they never built it the right way, never implemented it the right way. There was no human in the loop to review and assess.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
First one is ethics. I don't want to jeopardize that for anything. Building trust. Excellence. Integrity. And then faith. Faith is above all. Family is everything.
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