Anna-Lisa Leefers

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT ANNA-LISA LEEFERS

What happens when the tools we build to think better begin to change how we think? That question is driving my work right now. I study how human judgment changes when we collaborate deeply with AI. And it’s more urgent than most organizations realize.I’m an industry veteran with two decades of global experience. A decade and over a billion dollars of M&A work with Cisco, Nokia, and ACS/Xerox taught me how hard system-level change truly is under strategic uncertainty. Transformation efforts often fail not because of strategy, but because of human judgment under pressure. That practitioner foundation shapes everything I do now.Today, I work at the intersection of leadership, organizational decision-making, and human–AI collaboration. I’m a scholar-practitioner at the University of Texas at Arlington, an executive coach, and a researcher studying what happens when humans collaborate deeply with artificial intelligence — not just as a productivity tool, but as a thinking partner.This work is grounded in lived experience and empirical inquiry. Through 200+ sustained collaborations with multiple advanced AI systems and classroom-based research, I’ve studied human–AI partnership from a rare vantage point: both researcher and participant. This research has led me to articulate what I call the AI Attunement Paradox™: a pattern that helps leaders recognize when deep AI collaboration strengthens judgment, and when it quietly begins to erode it. In my classroom and executive work, I design environments that strengthen metacognitive capacity rather than outsource it.I also write for broader audiences, translating this work for organizational leaders navigating AI-driven transformation. The question facing leaders today isn’t whether to adopt AI; it’s how to lead with intention when the tools we rely on are designed to be seamless, responsive, and easy to trust.We are living through a once-in-a-generation shift — one that will redefine how work is done, how decisions are made, and what meaningful leadership requires. My work is focused on helping leaders make sense of that shift before its consequences become invisible.