Tonya J. Long

I’m the Chief Investor Officer at K2X Capital, where I lead investor engagement, capital strategy, and the execution pathways that take bold ventures from private-market growth to IPO readiness. My role is to ensure investors, advisors, and founders are aligned on one vision: scaling with clarity, resilience, and relevance.

Over two decades as an enterprise B2B technology executive, I’ve led transformations from startup inception to $5B scale. I’ve delivered 400 product launches, led 20 M&As, opened 2 countries, and generated $1.5B in documented value through strategic operations. My global teams across 15 countries helped launch early innovations such as Microsoft Teams’ federated skills-based routing engine and Ford Credit’s first online lending platform.

At K2X, I build the bridge between capital and operating discipline. I'm responsible for a 100+ cohort of Advisors (all of whom are investors in the fund) as we build "The ETF of Startups" and drive the strategic narrative that prepares companies for the rigor of the public markets. My work centers on aligning governance, execution, and investor confidence in an era defined by AI and accelerated change.

Beyond K2X, I'm the author of "AI and the New Oz" — a #1 Amazon best-seller in seven categories — and the upcoming "The Journey is the Job," exploring how wisdom, not data, becomes the ultimate differentiator. I host the "RESET with Tonya" podcast on KPCR 92.9 FM and speak globally on AI, the future of work, and the Wisdom Economy.

I invest with my hands as much as my capital — connecting high-integrity teams to the right investors, operators, and outcomes. I strongly believe the future belongs to those who can create relevance✨ — and keep humans in the loop.

Vice President, Operations & People (Fractional) | Digital Transformation, M&A, & Change Management

Consultancy delivering fractional CxO services, transformation project design + leadership, and executive coaching. 

• Identified strategy for post-acquisition organizational design and key leadership changes for winning $3.4B private equity bid of online community platform.
• Accelerated product release velocity 2X for Security FinTech by leading 8 cross-functional teams (65 leaders) focused on product lifecycle, accountability, and repeatable process execution.
• Developed standardized US comp model to support AI company’s 2023 growth targets (recent Series A). 
• Supported transformation strategy at 11,000-employee tech company by facilitating new Products division org structure led by Chief Strategy Officer and BU-specific Chief Technology Officers.
• Enabled Board-level leadership investment discussions for $6B public company by preparing BoD Executive Talent Review of 175 executives.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨? 
𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭, 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞.

I’m trying out a new series called 𝘿𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙗𝙤𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝘿𝙞𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨, where one of my Bay Area buddies hops in the car with me, and we turn a slow crawl on the interstate into twenty minutes of conversation, curiosity, and laughter.

The kickoff episode is with none other than Pavel Vinitsky, PhD 𝗼𝗳 Synexis.
No one should be allowed to have this much fun in twenty minutes.

If you’d like to watch the full episode, the YouTube link will be in the comments.

We laugh.
We pontificate.
We explore everything from the changing investment landscape to our plans for the next 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗺. And we talk about the event we were both dressed up and headed to: The Women in Tech Gala, hosted at the amaaaazing AGI House by Valentina E., Patrick E., and Melissa Daniel — an extraordinary effort that brought something special to our Bay Area community. I’ll share photo collages from the event tomorrow. It was an outstanding soirée.

At the end of the episode, Pavel recommended three people to join me next in the passenger seat. I’ll be reaching out soon to get you in the car for a quick trip for coffee and conversation as we drive 101 chasing good coffee, big ideas, and the kind of insights you only get while navigating Bay Area traffic.

Stay tuned… 𝘿𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙗𝙤𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝘿𝙞𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙣.

Chief Investor Officer @ K2X Capital | Investor, Strategist, and AI Humanitarian Championing the Wisdom Era 🌎 | Board Member & C-Suite Advisor 🏛️ | Bestselling AI Author 👠 | Speaker + Radio & Podcast Host 🎙️

On Friday evening, I joined a gathering for "𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲: 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲," organized by IgniteGTM and hosted at McKinsey & Company's beautiful offices in Redwood City. For a Friday night, the turnout alone made a strong statement about where we are as an industry – people are craving practical clarity on how agentic AI is transforming enterprise work.

Several conversations confirmed that agentic systems are moving from early experiments to true operational impact. Adoption may hover around 3% today, but projections predict early movers reaching 15% this year and large enterprises hitting 30–40% in 2026. Companies behind the curve could be operating 10x slower than their peers within a year.

The shift in conversation from “AI features” to agent-first workflows that deliver measurable ROI was a clear pivot from earlier this year. The example shared by one panelist about an agent restructuring a week-long analyst report in under thirty minutes was evidence that we’re not talking about incremental efficiency, but a fundamental reshaping of how work happens.

The predictions for next year are bold: 
🤖 agent-to-agent transactions across enterprises 
🦾 early humanoid presence in the workplace

Through all the technological acceleration, one theme kept surfacing: 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. The organizations that win will combine strong engineering with leaders who can orchestrate complex adaptive systems and guide people through this shift.

The current opportunity isn't just agentic AI adoption — it’s the re-architecture of the enterprise for a new era of speed, intelligence, and resilience. A heartfelt thank you to Bill and Jessica for convening this community, and to the McKinsey leadership team for their generosity and hospitality. Nights like this remind us what’s possible when innovators gather to learn, share, and map the road ahead.

Okhtay Azarmanesh, Bill Barry, Mariane Bekker, Liz Buck, Ankit Garg, Michael Jacobs, John Khazraee, Jessica Kobilova, Sajai K., Katja Ratamäki, Doug Shannon, Tim Shea, Sebastian S., James Urquhart, Tony Zirnoon, and so many more...

I optimize people, process, and profit – often in a technology framework. I've restructured and trimmed $1.5B from the bottom line, opened new countries for servicing, increased stock values by 155%, implemented ideas that led to $50M/year in incremental margin, and converted a $2.8B legacy hardware portfolio to 53% subscription revenue. But it was always about the people, always.

I lead initiatives that solve broad, often tedious, corporate challenges while we design, align and deliver complex changes that shift our business trajectory. My next role will leverage two successful decades in Technology to help new organizations compete differently as they scale in an increasingly dynamic and competitive world. I’m keen to build successful teams that deliver business in unique and thoughtful ways. The world is demanding innovation in HOW we lead and work, not just what we deliver. My fluency in the languages of technology, human motivation, diversity, social capital, impact, and operational excellence promote the business results we desire most ➝ sustainable profitable growth.

Creating order from chaos powered my ability to maximize velocity in a range of organizations during the last 20 years. From a 15,000-person legacy hardware enterprise to an 85-person SaaS scale-up, we architected ecosystems that launched over 400 product releases and enabled portfolio restructuring in multiple $1B organizations. I’ve delivered corporate initiatives and programs serving customers like Walmart, Bank of America, Apple, Barclays, HSBC, and Daimler-Chrysler and converted a $2.8B product portfolio from on-prem to SaaS/subscription.

My leadership focuses on change, influence, and people, making it a First Principle to empower teams to do their best work. Spearheading 20 strategic M&A integrations in India, Israel, the UK, Canada, and the US are among my most rewarding projects. Launching greenfield operations in Dalian (China) and Galway (Ireland) and leading the turnaround of a 100-person, mission-critical team in Bangalore (India) were also career highlights. 

I’m a Future of Work thought leader obsessed with transformation. As an ICF-certified executive coach, I was dubbed “the Lion Tamer"... though Connection is my true signature strength. Being invited to join CHIEF in Jan 2021 as an early member of the San Francisco chapter extended my reach and amplified my impact tenfold. 

#onwardandupward

IgniteGTM

McKinsey & Company

CEO at IgniteGTM | AI INFRA SUMMIT | Co-founder at INFRACORE

Head of Strategic Partnerships & Business Development | Driving Operational Excellence

Principal AI Architect at Snowflake

Investor & Managing Partner at Founders Bay | CTO w/ 4x exits | Startups, Tech & Diversity 🚀 | Head of Developer Relations @ You.com | Join our Founder & VC community -​> foundersbay.com

Senior Director, Technical Program Management | Leading and Scaling TPM Org | Driving Infra, Platform, Cloud and GenAI/Agentic Transformation Programs

CEO & Co-Founder, FermiHDI | Defining the Hyperscale Data Infrastructure Category | Solving the Architectural Mismatch

Founder of Investwise | AI-Powered Data Center Compliance and Regulation | Ex-Microsoft/IBM/Oracle Tech Leader | #1 Amazon Bestselling Author | U.S. Veteran

GM & startup CEO(B2B), ex Elastic/VMW/Wavefront/AWS/NetApp/BoozAllen Partner

Founder | CTO | Solving world food problems with AI | Skydiving student | Nerd & Coder | Downhill skier | Tech Ph.D

Global Intelligent Automation & GenAI Leader | AI Agent Strategy & Innovation | Top AI Voice | Top 25 Thought Leaders | Co-Host of InsightAI | Speaker | Gartner Peer Ambassador | Forbes Technology Council

AI Analytics Solutions for Retail ❄️ Snowflake 🔗 LangChain 📈 LTV ✧ CAC ✧ Retention ✧ Predictive Analytics

Insights on Entrepreneurship, VC and Tech Absurdities

Field CTO and Technology Evangelist, Kamiwaza |Technology Leader | Strategic Architect | Modern Software Development CTO |

Seasoned Sales GTM , BizDev and Strategic Partnerships Leader focused on the intersection of AgenticAI and Cybersecurity, GRC and AI Infra | Investor | Advisor

Agentic Enterprise with Ignite + McKinsey (21Nov2025)

Sajai K.

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