The ROI You're Not Measuring
Most engineering leaders can point to one kind of ROI when asked to justify their AI investments, usually the productivity story. But that's only a third of the picture. This panel breaks down the three pillars leaders should be measuring, and rarely are all at once: defensive ROI (breaches avoided, exposure reduced, unsanctioned AI tools brought under control), efficiency ROI (real operational savings, not just faster typing), and productivity ROI (what actually ships). None of these pillars is optional or more important than the others. In today's leadership, they're all equal. Panelists walk through what it actually looks like to track all three, so leaders leave with a fuller answer than "it made us faster" the next time someone asks what they're getting for their spend.
Xiao Guo
VP Engineering
Xiao Guo is a Vice President of Engineering at Microsoft, leading teams building AI-powered experiences across Copilot. She is focused on accelerating innovation, driving engineering excellence, scaling products that help millions of people work more effectively with AI and enabling advanced intelligence in everyday interactions.
PJ Jang
SVP Engineering
PJ Jang is an engineering executive with more than 20 years of experience transforming technology strategy and innovation into enterprise-scale products. She has built and led large, cross-disciplinary engineering organizations at leading technology companies including ServiceNow, Cisco, and Oracle.
As Senior Vice President of Product Engineering at ServiceNow, PJ drives innovation, engineering excellence, and strategic direction across some of the company’s highest-priority initiatives. Her leadership spans AI-native technology, security and risk, autonomous operations, and the integration of major acquisitions to build differentiated, next-generation products.
PJ has played a key role in shaping product and platform strategy across vulnerability and exposure management, security operations, CMDB, IT operation management, and enterprise AI. She works closely with customers and executives globally to translate complex technology challenges into business outcomes. She has also led major modernization efforts across ServiceNow’s technology stack, significantly improving scale and performance, and launched strategic offerings including Health Log Analytics and Digital End-User Experience (DEX) on the company’s Kubernetes platform and AI-native ITSM product.
Previously, PJ served as Vice President at Cisco, helping customers navigate digital transformation in multi-cloud environments, and at Oracle, where she led the development of SaaS solutions for Oracle Management Cloud.
PJ is a strong advocate for advancing women in engineering through mentorship and leadership development. She holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and is a published cybersecurity researcher, having co-authored “Enlisting Event Patterns for Cyber Battlefield Awareness” (DARPA Information Survivability Conference and Exposition, 2000. DISCEX ‘00. Proceedings). Outside of work, PJ enjoys classical music and golf.