Natalie Mao leads AI product innovation and adoption as Vice President in the AI and Data Division at Rakuten, where she oversees a global cross functional team. Her work covers search, recommendations, personalization, customer service, AI safety, and conversational agents, delivering AI driven experiences that create value across the Rakuten ecosystem. From mobile and eCommerce to fintech and communications, her team powers scalable and impactful AI solutions for a wide range of businesses.

A tenured leader from Microsoft and Amazon, Natalie brings a strong track record of building and scaling global teams grounded in strategic vision, operational excellence, and an inclusive culture.

At Microsoft Ignite, she will share how Rakuten leverages Azure Storage to efficiently build both large and small language models, accelerating AI development and driving innovation across diverse business domains.