How Collaboration at Rady Changed Amy Bernal’s Career Path

Amy Bernal’s path to become Chief Experience Officer at artificial intelligence company Aira began before the company was even born. Prior to entering the Rady School in 2011, Bernal, who graduated from the Flex MBA program in 2014, had worked in project management and business development for local non-profit organizations. “I was hungry to operate in an entrepreneurial environment,” she says. “I knew that Rady was the best in terms of the ability to connect to the right people.”

It was in her first study group at Rady where Bernal met classmate Suman Kanuganti. Bernal and Kanuganti also worked together through their Lab to Market course sequence. By their final quarter, Kanuganti had the idea for Aira, which connects blind and low-vision people to remote human agents via smart phone or smart glasses, and developed his concept through Rady’s Lab to Market and StartR programs.

“I was able to see him create that company, leave where he was working before, and I eventually followed him,” says Bernal, who a senior offering program manager at Intuit before joining Aira.  

Since 2016, Bernal has grown from Director of Agent Services to Chief Experience Officer at Aira. Currently, she is working to expand Aira’s network of 25,000+ partners across companies, locations, platforms and devices to increase accessibility for Aira “explorers” (users).

In the video, Bernal explains how her MBA degree from Rady broadened her skillset and opened her world to new opportunities.