Evolving Product Leadership in the Age of AI

Hawi Abbajobir is a Product Lead at Codat, where she's building Advisory Intelligence, an AI-powered product that helps commercial bankers understand and advise their business clients. Her 11-year fintech career, across the US and UK, began in audit at Simple, widely regarded as the first neobank, which gave her a front-row seat to the challenges of building a digital bank long before the concept went mainstream. After an MBA at the University of Cambridge, she moved into product, building lending products at Uncapped, FX products at Visa and SMB accounting automation at Codat. She's seen fintech from many angles, from consumer to business and startup to global corporate, and that's what keeps it interesting for her.

Naoil is a research leader with 15+ years of experience spanning academic, agency, and in-house product research, including seven years in leadership roles. Her work focuses on understanding people and using research to inform product strategy and growth, with a deep interest in how technology shapes people’s lives.

Her experience across different research environments has shaped how she approaches research, leadership, and the role of research in building products that work for the people who use them.

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Errol Forbes is a Senior Product Manager at Spotify, focused on subscription and account management experiences. He has more than 20 years of experience across consulting, operations and technology, including product leadership roles at Amazon and Microsoft. At Amazon, he spent eight years working across multiple initiatives including supporting Alexa’s transition to generative AI and integrating agentic actions into the Amazon app’s Rufus AI assistant. He is particularly interested in how AI is changing both the products we build and the way product, engineering and design teams work together.

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Aji Bawo is an award-winning technology and product leader with nearly two decades of experience turning technology into meaningful commercial and customer outcomes. As Head of Product, Store Technology at Tesco, she leads major product and transformation initiatives shaping the future of retail, bringing together technology, data, AI and human-centred product thinking.

From starting her career as a database developer to becoming a senior technology leader, Aji has built a reputation for translating complex technology into products that solve real problems at scale. Her career includes launching AI and machine-learning enabled platforms that generated more than £9m in incremental revenue, alongside major digital propositions including Tesco Marketplace and F&F Online.

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A passionate advocate for inclusive leadership, Aji is equally committed to creating opportunities for others. She leads capability-building across the Product community, has designed and facilitated training for more than 500 Product professionals, and actively mentors and champions women in technology. 
Her impact has been recognised through numerous awards, including AllBright Everywoman in Technology Woman of the Year 2026, Purpose-Led Role Model at Technology Ignite,  Lifetime Achievement Award at the Women in Tech Awards 2025 and a recent shortlist as Technology Leader of the year at the Novi Awards.  Her story has also been featured in Voices in the Shadow, held by the British Library. 

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Beyond technology, Aji is CEO of a charity supporting girls in underdeveloped countries to access education, reflecting her belief that technology and leadership are at their most powerful when they create opportunity for others. 

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At Black Tech Fest, Aji brings a practical leadership perspective to the AI conversation: not simply what AI can do, but how we harness it responsibly and boldly to transform businesses, empower people and create a future in which more of us have the opportunity to shape technology, rather than simply consume it.

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