Joel Hellermark

Joel Hellermark is the founder of Sana and Chief AI Officer at Workday. In 2025, Workday acquired Sana in one of the largest AI acquisitions in European tech history. At Workday, he leads the vision for AI, bringing AI-powered search, agents, and learning to over 65% of the Fortune 500. Joel founded Sana in 2016, aged 19. Under his leadership, Sana was recognized as one of the world's leading AI companies, pioneering technology that transforms how teams access knowledge through AI. Joel taught himself to code in C at 13 and founded his first company at 16. He topped the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his work on democratizing education, and The Guardian named him in the top 10 of under-35s changing the world for the better. His work has been featured in leading AI and business forums including NAACL, SXSW, TED, BBC, Forbes, Business Insider, Financial Times, The Guardian, Yahoo Finance, Fast Company, and Wired.