Christi Deakin is a former Fortune 50 C-suite executive who turns strategy into results. As Chief Strategy Officer of Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), she led enterprise strategy for the $1.9T financial institution. At AWS (NASDAQ: AMZN), she worked directly with Fortune 2000 executives and FinTech firms to pinpoint their highest-value AI opportunities and move those initiatives from concept to production. She also built a Big 4 consulting practice from the ground up. Her focus on AI strategy and transformation combined with decades of operating experience makes her a sought after thought partner whose keen pattern recognition ability enables her to translate complex challenges into measurable successes.

In addition to her mentoring work, Deakin advises executives, founders, and private equity portfolio companies through Tessera Advisory, her AI strategy and transformation practice. She also serves as a Limited Partner Advisor with Nyca Partners, one of the leading FinTech venture capital firms, where she partners with portfolio company leaders on growth strategy, market positioning, and enterprise go-to-market. She contributes to investment theme development, helps evaluate prospective investments, and supports Nyca’s Enterprise Sales Roundtable, connecting founders with the insights they need to sell into large organizations. Additionally, she is a Strategic Advisor to Finaya, an AI-first FinTech startup reimagining the home ownership journey.

At Amazon Web Services (AWS), Deakin served as a strategist to Fortune 2000 executives and FinTech firms navigating AI and digital transformation. She brought expertise on understanding a company’s biggest business problems and identifying how AI could solve them, with a focus on use cases that delivered measurable ROI and were built for production. She also orchestrated strategic partnerships with global systems integrators and ISVs to accelerate transformation at scale.

As Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Wells Fargo, Deakin built and led the enterprise strategy function, managing a $2B+ discretionary investment portfolio across growth initiatives, technology, and risk. She designed and led Board agendas and presentations, conducted portfolio analysis that drove billions in divestiture and repositioning decisions, and created an internal strategy consulting practice that offset $100M in annual external spend. She also designed the Board orientation program for incoming directors. Earlier in her tenure, Deakin also led Business Services for the Wealth, Brokerage, and Retirement division, a $12.5B business with $1.2T in client assets and 40,000 team members. She held P&L responsibility and drove transformation across strategy, product, marketing, and data and analytics.

Deakin built and led KPMG Consulting’s (subsequently BearingPoint) U.S. Wealth and Investment Management Practice. In establishing the practice, she advised leading financial institutions on strategy, product innovation, and technology transformation, developing scalable frameworks that clients could institutionalize. During this time, Deakin earned recognition as a Global Top 5 Managing Director.

Deakin holds a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and is a Certified Public Accountant. The proud product of a military family, her father’s 30-year career as an Air Force pilot shaped the resilience and commitment to excellence she carries into her coaching and leadership. She has been recognized as one of the Most Influential Women in Business in San Francisco, served as a Global Advisor for How Women Lead, and served on the Board of Directors of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

An avid hiker, tennis player, and Peloton enthusiast, she is also a passionate cook and host who enjoys crafting experiences for family and friends. Recent explorations have taken her family from Alaska to Iceland to Africa, and they’re always planning the next adventure. She resides in Sarasota, Florida, with her husband, where she aspires to keep up with him on the pickleball court, which is highly unlikely.