Conversation Design Institute

As Global Head of Sales at CDI, I lead the charge in expanding our reach and impact across the world. My role focuses on aligning innovative sales strategies with our mission to empower businesses at every stage of their conversational AI journey—whether they’re just starting out or scaling to new heights.

With a dual focus on training and consulting, I work to drive growth across CDI’s core offerings, including hands-on workshops, comprehensive audits, and strategic consulting. My goal is to ensure businesses are equipped with the knowledge, tools, and support they need to implement impactful, future-ready conversational AI solutions.

In this role, I’m passionate about building strong partnerships, guiding teams toward success, and contributing to CDI’s evolution as a global leader in conversational AI. Let’s connect and explore how we can shape the future of conversational AI together!

Global Head of Sales

Companies around the world are looking for conversation designers, a rare breed of people that helps them advance communication between people and AI. That's where we help!

Conversation Design Institute teaches a human-centric workflow that has proven itself to organisations around the world. We work closely with tech partners, agencies and other key players in the industry. With this support, Conversation Design Institute is well on its way to becoming the number one platform in conversation design.

Become a certified professional, join one of our online courses, or work with our experts.

Business Development Specialist

Scaled Sales 

Good business coaches are there to help you see the blind spots and serve as your compass to make sure you are heading in the right direction. A business coach serves as an important objective third party to regularly check in to make sure that you are on the most direct path to your ideal destination. Oftentimes, the biggest hurdle to success is that you don't know what you don't know. You can't Google your way out of a problem that you aren't sure how to articulate—or worse, how to anticipate.

One pro for hiring a business coach for yourself is that it allows you to get constructive criticism from someone that doesn’t necessarily know you. 

A business coach is more like a person you're accountable to. No matter what level of success you have attained, there is a tendency to stay in your own lane and not observe habits and patterns that have been successful for others. A strong business coach can help increase awareness of methods and keys to success that have worked for other people and may be analogous to your own situation. 

One of the best investments you can make is in yourself. If you find yourself struggling in your professional career, or desire to increase your sales or improve your business relationship, then a business coach is an invaluable asset. One of the major advantages of having a coach or mentor is that they help you navigate through challenges and meet personal goals with their insights.


Steve Jobs once said, "We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." Where, if not coaching, could this apply to more? 

One of the biggest benefits of hiring a business coach is that they will help you stay on the right track. Building a business is tricky, especially if you're a startup. It's also very easy to get distracted by all the opportunities that come your way, but you can't possibly do it all. The key is setting the goals, developing the action plan on how to reach these goals and executing to make them happen.

Business Consultant

Yell 

Senior Sales Manager

Fingo - AMi

Digital Strategy Director

As a Business Development Specialist at Conversation Design Institute (CDI), I help organizations around the world create human-centric AI Assistants, such as chatbots and voice assistants. 

At CDI, I work closely with tech partners, agencies, and other key players in the industry to offer high-quality e-learning programs and live sessions for teams and individuals. I have trained hundreds of professionals in strategy, design, and development for AI Assistants, using our proven workflow and best practices.

My goal is to empower more people to design, deploy, and manage valuable conversational experiences.

Benjamin Taylor

I’m lucky enough to get to hear the episodes coming out of the academy before anyone else. 

So much of this episode struck me that I was blown away. 

Hillary Black  clearly gets it and we are unbelievably proud to have her as part of the community.

Global Head of Sales | Driving Growth in Conversational AI | Training, Auditing & Consulting Leader

View company: Conversation Design Institute (CDI)

We’re still at the beginning of conversational AI’s potential.

While prompting and new tools may make it feel like we’re starting over, this time the context is different. The widespread attention around AI has raised the baseline understanding across companies, brands, and individuals.

Many still don’t fully understand what conversational AI or conversation design truly means—but the conversation has changed. Today, people come in more informed, more curious, and more ready to explore what’s actually possible.

Join Hillary Black , conversation designer at MAV in the new episode of unprompted. by CDI. 

Watch the full video here https://hubs.la/Q03YBjZB0

That shift opens the door to deeper, more meaningful progress.
#ConversationalAI #ConversationDes

With ~8 years of professional experience across strategy, management consulting and business development, I have helped organisations across India, UAE, Spain and USA, drive corporate strategy and growth across industries such as education, technology, edtech, gaming and live entertainment.

My expertise lies in leadership, stakeholder management, P&L ownership and delivering high-impact engagements and strategies that achieve measurable results. Having transitioned from business development and consulting to strategy & operations, I leverage a unique blend of commercial acumen and data-driven decision-making to help companies succeed. I am passionate about solving complex business challenges and thrive in high-growth environments where strategy meets execution.

Professional Highlights
• At Fever, I manage a cross-functional team, driving the growth and international expansion of a multi-million dollar portfolio of live entertainment events.
• At Floc, I led a global team of 4 strategy associates advising the CEO on corporate strategy, market positioning and international expansion, enhancing market share from 1% to 5% as an internal strategy consultant.
• At ThoughtNext, I led 4-7 strategy consultants, managing 12+ consulting engagements worth ~$40M across EMEA and APAC. I drove delivery and stakeholder management for clients in education & technology sectors, focusing on revenue growth, GTM strategy and new market entry.
• At Coursopedia, I recruited, trained and led a team of 150 B2C and B2B sales professionals, growing annual revenue by ~400%. Furthermore, co-I led the investment raising ($500K) and international expansion strategy of the firm.
• At upGrad, I led a sales team of 65 people, scaling the online degree vertical in India and the UAE, managing a revenue turnover of ~$12M.
• At BYJU'S, I led a team of 7 to build a customer outreach and engagement strategy enhancing user base by ~6%.

Academics
I hold a Master of Advanced Management from Yale School of Management, an MBA from IE Business School and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology. Additionally, I have completed masters level study exchanges and Post Graduate Certificate programs at HEC Paris, Oxford Saïd Business School, IIM Indore etc.

Awards
I was named in Harappa upGrad's 40 Under 40 list of India's Best Managers in 2023 and was honoured with the Outstanding Leadership Award at the Education 2.0 Conference in 2022. I was also selected as one of the 100 Most Inspiring MBA Students Worldwide by MBA World Summit in 2023.

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The Battle

Benjamin Taylor

Shivanjan Srivastava

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