Dhiraj Mukherjee

Dhiraj Mukherjee, Co-Founder of Shazam, Early OpenAI Investor and Speaker on AI, Adaptable Leadership and the Future of Work

• Co-founder of Shazam, the music-recognition app acquired by Apple in 2018
• Early investor in OpenAI, with investments in more than 250 AI and technology companies
• Named one of Europe’s Top 50 technology entrepreneurs by the Financial Times
• Speaker at the AWS Executive Leaders Forum in London and international AI and leadership conferences
• Advisor to organisations including UBS, PwC, Eli Lilly and Unilever
• Keynote speaker on scaling AI, leading through uncertainty and building the workforce of the future

Speaking

Dhiraj Mukherjee knows what it means to be ahead of your time. He also knows that having the right idea is only the beginning. When he helped launch Shazam in 2002, the technology needed to make it a global success barely existed. The company had to survive years of uncertainty while the world caught up with its vision. Today, as an early investor in OpenAI and advisor to major international organisations, Dhiraj sees a similar challenge emerging with artificial intelligence. Businesses recognise its potential, but many are struggling to turn promising experiments into meaningful results.

His message is that the hardest part of AI transformation is often not the technology. It is leadership.

At the AWS Executive Leaders Forum in London, Dhiraj explored why organisations need to move beyond isolated AI pilots towards productive deployment across the business. He argues that successful leaders will not necessarily be those with all the answers, but those who remain curious, lead with empathy and give their teams the confidence and appropriate safeguards to experiment. Dhiraj’s keynotes bring together three perspectives: the experience of building Shazam, the insight gained from investing in emerging technology and his ongoing conversations with business leaders and policymakers around the world today.

He challenges audiences to reconsider how they make decisions, develop talent and prepare for jobs that do not yet fully exist. His approach is optimistic without ignoring the challenges of organisational change.

Diraj shares what he learned from adapting when things did not go entirely to plan.

Speaker Topics

• Leadership in the Age of AI
• Moving from AI Pilots to Enterprise-Wide Deployment
• How to Adapt to the Future
• Building the Workforce of the Future
• AI, Innovation and Business Transformation
• Leading Through Uncertainty and Disruption
• Curiosity, Empathy and Human Skills in an AI World
• The Shazam Story: Building an Idea Before Its Time
• Entrepreneurship and Innovation
• Building Organisations That Learn and Reinvent Themselves

Why Book Dhiraj Mukherjee?

Dhiraj combines the experience of a technology founder with the perspective of an early AI investor who now works closely with senior executives confronting the challenges of adoption. He helps leadership audiences move beyond the excitement surrounding AI to the decisions that matter: where to invest, how to scale successful initiatives, how to develop people and how to build organisations capable of changing continuously.

Audiences at organisations including Google, Mastercard, BCG and CarTrawler have praised his authenticity, clarity and ability to connect emerging technology with practical business challenges. Dhiraj makes complex change feel understandable, without pretending it will be easy.

Biography

Dhiraj Mukherjee’s career has been shaped by a willingness to embrace the new and the unfamiliar.

Growing up in an international family, he moved between countries because of his father’s work with Air India. Adapting to new cultures, meeting new people and finding his feet in unfamiliar environments became part of everyday life. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Dhiraj worked at Bain and Oracle and earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He subsequently helped co-found Shazam, an idea that sounded almost impossible at the time: identifying music through an ordinary mobile phone.

Launched in 2002, Shazam faced a difficult journey. Smartphones had not yet arrived, mobile technology was limited and the company had to navigate changing markets, financial pressures and years of uncertainty. The founders persevered, continually adapting the product as technology evolved. Shazam became one of the world’s best-known consumer technology brands, recording more than 100 billion song recognitions and being acquired by Apple in 2018 for approximately $400 million.

Since Shazam‘s sale, Dhiraj has become an active investor in more than 250 technology and emerging-industry companies, including OpenAI. His investments across artificial intelligence, climate technology and other sectors give him continuing exposure to new business models and technological developments. He has worked with corporate leaders at organisations including UBS, PwC, Eli Lilly and Unilever, helping them think about innovation, transformation and organisational adaptability.

More recently, his work has increasingly focused on the practical challenges of AI adoption. Alongside his keynote at the AWS Executive Leaders Forum in London, he has engaged with leaders and policymakers across the Middle East and Asia, including at Fintech Forward Bahrain, Deloitte Middle East, First Abu Dhabi Bank and the Seoul Future Conference.

These conversations have strengthened his conviction that AI adoption requires much more than technical investment. Organisations must reconsider how they make decisions, identify potential, support employees and balance experimentation with accountability.

Recognised by the Financial Times as one of Europe’s Top 50 technology entrepreneurs, Dhiraj continues to invest, advise and speak internationally. His central belief is straightforward: leaders cannot eliminate uncertainty, but they can build organisations that are better equipped to respond to it.

The future will not reward those who wait until every answer is clear. It will reward those who stay curious, develop their people and learn while they lead.

To contact Dhiraj Mukherjee for keynote speaking, AI and innovation conferences, leadership events and corporate engagements, call a Specialist Speakers agent on 0204 616 0868 or email info@specialistspeakers.com.