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Saigin Govender
Sr Director, GenAI @Adobe || ex: Meta AI Research (FAIR) | Amazon Alexa (Founding Team) | Tumblr CPTO
Saigin Govender, Independent Director at Payments Canada
Saigin Govender is an Independent Director on the Board of Directors at Payments Canada. He has over 20 years of experience spanning AI, product management and engineering.2
Some key facts about Saigin Govender:
- He is currently a Senior Director and Head of Product Management for Generative AI models and services across Adobe's creative products.4
- Govender was elected to the Payments Canada Board of Directors in 2021.5
- Together with Massey Henry, the Board of Payments Canada is in search of a new CEO, which Govender describes as a critical role for the organization.3
- His LinkedIn username is saigin-govender-a412792.6
Payments Canada's Board of Directors is composed of a majority of independent directors like Saigin Govender, along with member representatives who are experts in the payment industry.1 The board is charged with governing and managing the affairs of Payments Canada with a focus on strategic and policy matters.1
Highlights
What an exciting start! We just shared a preview of our upcoming video generation model. I am blown away by the results of our model and the professional-level quality it achieves. You can get a glimpse of some of the examples here: https://lnkd.in/gPS8gsaY . To boot, it’s commercially-safe and trained off ethically-sourced data. A big congratulations to the talented team on pulling off this incredible accomplishment!!
#adobe #firefly #videogeneration #ai
Creativity has always been close to my heart. Whether it’s painting, writing music, editing photos and videos, or carpentry, you will usually find me filling my free time with some sort of creative pursuit (http://www.saigin.com). For many of these pursuits, I rely on Adobe’s creator tools, and from time-to-time catch myself daydreaming, “wouldn’t it be something to actually work on building these tools?”
I am therefore beyond thrilled to share that I have joined Adobe as Senior Director of Product Management, leading Generative AI Models and Services. This means building the image, video, audio, 3D and language foundation models - collectively known as Firefly - that superpower Adobe’s family of apps (Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, etc). I feel incredibly lucky and grateful for this rare opportunity that draws upon both my passion for creativity, and my experience in AI research.
What’s more - amid all the AI hype - AI at Adobe is real. It is not a shiny side project lacking a sustainable business model. Instead, it is core to fundamentally improving and simplifying the creator experience, core to growing and retaining subscribers, and core to propelling Adobe’s $250B enterprise value. From my conversations, it is clear that Adobe recognizes the profound importance of AI, and has the vision, conviction, ecosystem and resources, to truly innovate, and transform creativity for the better. For all these reasons and more, I cannot think of another role that checks more boxes for me, both personally and professionally.
I want to thank the stellar team at Adobe for welcoming me onboard:
- Urmila, for hands-down being the best executive recruiter I’ve worked with
- Ram, for introducing me, and who I’m so excited to (re)partner with after an amazing run at Meta
- Zeke, Ely and Alexandru, for trusting me with this mission-critical responsibility
- Benjamin, Chitra, Jingwan (Cynthia) Lu, Ersin, Rebecca and others, for the inspiring and empathetic conversations that got me so excited about working together.
When I decided to embark on a sabbatical last year, I wasn’t sure where the road would lead. While I had been contemplating a sabbatical for some time, it was still an uncomfortable thing for me to act upon, and truth-be-told, I had my second thoughts right before resigning. Looking back, I am certain I would not have found this role, had I not taken time off. It gave me the space to reflect, and be very deliberate, patient and stubborn in choosing my next role. I will someday hopefully write about the merits of taking a sabbatical - until then, if you are considering one, I am happy to share my own experience and advice.
Thank you to everyone who’s been a part of my journey. I’m so excited for all that’s ahead - stay tuned!
