A mathematician who set out to build AI that could read scans — and stayed to govern what it became.

Dr. Eva-Marie Muller-Stuler — recognised as one of the AI governance advisors and a leading female figure in AI — trained as a mathematician and earned her PhD in developing AI for medical diagnostics. Her early career combined deep technical research with corporate finance modelling — work that taught her, before AI was fashionable, what it costs when models meet real institutional decisions.

In 2013 she founded one of Europe's first Data Science and AI teams. At the time, enterprise AI had no playbook; the team built one in production, under commercial pressure, with the kinds of constraints that only later became the industry standard for responsible AI.

What followed was a fifteen-year arc through three of the world's largest professional services and technology firms. She joined KPMG London as Chief Data Scientist, where she shaped data science across audit, advisory, and risk engagements for major financial and professional services clients. From there she moved to EY MENA as Lead Partner for Data & AI, running the firm's regional practice and advising boards and C-suites on AI strategy, risk, and responsible deployment at scale. She then took the role of CTO for AI at IBM Middle East & Africa, setting technical strategy for IBM's AI portfolio across one of the most operationally complex regions in the world.

Her work spans Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, including engagements with governments, defence, and intelligence-linked environments. These are settings where AI failure is not a press release — it is a sovereign, operational, or human-rights problem.

That is where her judgment was formed. The pattern she came to see repeatedly was the same: AI was rarely failing because the models were weak. It was failing because the systems around them — governance, oversight, accountability, operational discipline — had not caught up. Today, as one of the most sought-after AI thought leaders and conference speakers in the field, the work she does is to close that gap, before it closes on the institutions she advises.

On responsibility

I have spent my career building AI inside institutions that could not afford to get it wrong. Powerful AI is easy to admire. Responsible AI is hard to build. The harm of bad AI falls hardest on the people with the least power to refuse it. My work now is to help boards and leaders close the gap between deployment and accountability — before it closes on them.

Boards & affiliations

Selected recognition

Dr. Eva-Marie Muller-Stuler founded The Hummingbird Group, the firm through which she delivers her advisory and AI capability work to boards, institutions, and senior leaders. Dreva is her personal authority platform; The Hummingbird Group is the firm.