Meet Kima Sargsyan: Making Sense of AI, Culture, and Strategy at Work
As AI reshapes how work gets done, the real differentiator isn’t just technical fluency. It’s the ability to see patterns, connect ideas, and translate emerging tools into meaningful impact. Kima Sargsyan has built her career at exactly that intersection.
Kima will be hosting Week 6 of the AdaMarie Career Accelerator, focused on AI in the workplace. As an Experience and Brand Strategy Director at Huge, she leads work at the forefront of AI-enhanced digital platforms across health, commerce, and education. Her career spans strategy, product growth, brand innovation, and futures thinking, shaped by a multidisciplinary approach and a deep curiosity about how technology and culture collide.
In her Accelerator session, Kima will help participants move beyond surface-level AI conversations to think more clearly about how emerging tools change decision-making, creativity, and career trajectories. If you’re registered for the Accelerator, you’ll learn directly from her.
If you’re curious how a non-linear, curiosity-driven path can lead to some of the most impactful work in tech, keep reading.
Meet Kima Sargsyan!
Getting to Know You:
Major & Minor – If you went to college!: Management, Marketing & Commerce
Field of Work: Strategy
Expertise In: Global Product Growth, Brand Innovation & AI-enhanced Digital Platforms
Current Company: Huge
Job Title: Experience & Brand Strategy Director
One-liner About What You’re Working On: AI-enhanced health, commerce & education products
Currently geeking out over: Space, futures thinking & foresight
STEM Hero: Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie, Ada Lovelace
Tell us about your professional journey – how did you get where you are now?
My path has been less of a ladder and more of a map I drew while walking. I've worked across hospitality, tech, and product consulting, always gravitating toward moments where there's a chance to create something new through products, platforms, or storytelling.
I landed in strategy because I kept noticing patterns other people missed and couldn't stop asking "why" and "what if." That curiosity took me from early brand and product work to leading strategy for Fortune 500 clients like Google, Android, Nespresso, and SharkNinja at Huge Inc. Along the way, I realized the industry rewards specialists, but I'm wired as a multidisciplinary thinker. Rather than fight that, I leaned into it—teaching AI leadership courses and publishing Perceptio, where I explore how taste, culture, and technology collide.
Fifteen years in, I've learned that the most valuable thing I do is help people see connections they couldn't see before.
We’re also curious to know your personal story and upbringing. What has made you “you”?
Growing up, I was the kid who always read. That hasn't changed. My habit of consuming broadly—science fiction alongside business strategy alongside cultural criticism trained me to think across boundaries rather than within them.
I truly believe the best thing you can do for yourself is learn. Learning, in that sense, is a form of self-advocacy. It's how you expand what's possible for yourself before anyone else gives you permission.
I'm also constantly shaped by the people around me. The best insights rarely come from isolated thinking—they come from conversation, from friction, from watching how other people move through the world. That's made me someone who pays attention, and I think that attention is at the core of everything I do.
We know that real life isn’t a smooth and linear journey. What was your initiating moment that led you to your calling - can you tell us about that moment, what helped you move forward, what you learned/discovered?
There wasn't one lightning bolt—more like a series of moments where I kept returning to the same intersection.
What I've learned is that calling isn't something you find once, it's something you keep choosing and refining.
The moments that feel like setbacks (being passed over, being misunderstood) often clarify the calling faster than the wins do. When you're forced to articulate why you belong somewhere, you start to understand what you're actually building toward.
Inspiration also comes from other people and their stories. Sometimes you hear someone describe their path, and it gives you permission to dream bigger—or dream differently—and then actually go after it. I've been shaped as much by the stories I've heard as by the experiences I've had.
You work in a performance-driven industry. Where do you find balance?
Balance isn't a state I achieve, it's a negotiation I have daily. I run hot, with multiple projects spinning at once: client work, advisory practice, speaking, teaching, writing, mentoring. Pretending I have it figured out would be dishonest.
What works for me is thinking in seasons rather than days. There are seasons where I'm building and shipping constantly. There are seasons where I protect time fiercely for reading and thinking. I've stopped measuring my output against anyone else's rhythm and learned to trust that the work compounds, even when progress feels invisible.
You choose one: if you were a part of the human body, outer space, or a scientific process, what would you be and why?
I'd be emergence—the phenomenon where complex patterns arise from simple interactions. It signifies something new appearing, developing, or becoming apparent, moving from obscurity to presence. Neurons firing into consciousness.
That's what I do professionally: I watch for the moments when scattered data points suddenly form a shape that matters, and I help organizations see that shape before their competitors do which later become new products, insights, brand direction and more.
It's also how I think about my career not as a predetermined destination, but as something coherent emerging from all the unexpected turns.
We would love to feature your work. How can we spread the word about what you’re doing?
You can follow my writing on Substack called Perceptio, where I explore what we create, consume, and believe: kimasargsyan.substack.com. I'm especially excited about THE FUTURES series if you want a place to start.
Do you have a favorite motivational quote or song?
Do what you can with what you have.
Any final advice for early-career STEM professionals?
The most important thing you can do early in your career is cultivate confidence and self-belief—not arrogance, but the genuine conviction that you can figure things out. Once you believe that, the rest follows.
And my practical advice: Build something that's just for you. A side project, a reading practice—something where you're not waiting for permission. The clarity that comes from owning your own platform is worth more than any title someone else can give you.
Join a 2026 Accelerator Cohort to learn from Kima!
Kima will be leading Week 6 of the AdaMarie Career Accelerator, focused on how AI is transforming the workplace and what that means for your role, skills, and long-term career trajectory.
If you want to join her live session and learn alongside a small cohort of peers, registration for the Career Accelerator is now open. Participants gain access to expert-led sessions, guided discussion, and the broader AdaMarie community throughout the program.
