María Elena Gavilán Alfonso, MSc, MBA
AI Strategist & Consultant | Helping businesses adopt AI with clarity, confidence, and responsibility
María Elena Gavilán Alfonso is a physicist, aerospace engineer, and MBA who has seen firsthand what separates technology that genuinely transforms a business from technology that just creates noise. Especially with AI, it comes down to foundations, understanding what it actually does, where it fits your specific context, and what it means for your team, your projects, and your decisions.
She has worked in industries where getting the technology wrong has real consequences, which is where her commitment to responsible AI was shaped. That experience carries directly into her consulting work. She helps business owners and leaders figure out where AI genuinely fits their goals, build a clear framework for using it well, and make decisions grounded in understanding, not pressure or hype. The goal isn't just adoption. It's adoption that sticks, and that your team can trust.
María speaks at conferences across industries, making the case that AI strategy should start with people and their readiness, not just tools. She also mentors and teaches, with a longtime commitment to making technical fields more accessible to underrepresented communities.
As a collaborator with JKirley Collective, she brings technical depth and business fluency together, so clients get both the strategic clarity and the grounded expertise to move forward with confidence.