C. Knotts-circle

Chris Knotts

Facilitator

About Chris

Chris Knotts, is an enterprise learning leader and hands-on instructor who teaches AI, data, and technical agility to real-world teams. He delivers high-impact training for engineers, product teams, and business leaders—helping them understand emerging technology and immediately apply it in their daily workflows.

With two decades of experience across software engineering, DevOps, data platforms, and AI enablement, Chris is known for breaking down complex concepts with clarity, humor, and practical relevance. He teaches both technical practitioners and leadership cohorts, bridging the gap between strategy and execution, vision and application.

Beyond delivery, Chris designs the programs he teaches - often in collaboration with customers - creating role-based learning pathways, AI literacy training, strategy workshops, and real-world labs and exercises. His specialty is helping organizations adopt AI responsibly and quickly, speed up skills development, and build internal capability rather than rely on slideware.

Chris has led training and enablement portfolios for many Fortune organizations and government agencies, including Apple, Cisco, the US Marines, Fidelity Investments, the Department of Homeland Security, the American Bureau of Shipping, H&R Block, and many others. His training programs encompass AI, data engineering, DevOps, and enterprise agility. Today he continues to facilitate workshops, teach private enterprise cohorts, and advise L&D teams on scaling up modern capability-building programs.

At SoftEd, Chris has developed:

  • Hands-on generative AI training for project managers
  • Strategic workshops for leaders on guiding AI initiatives
  • Generative AI training for Learning and Development teams
  • Workshops for those guiding enterprise-eide AI adoption initiatives
  • Process templates for managing risk and legal liability associated with AI

Previous to SoftEd, these are a few of the programs Chris designed and led:

  • At Visa, he helped guide the development of the Visa "Garage," an innovation lab for developing and testing new products and features
  • At U.S. Bank, he helped design a organization-wide learning program for transitioning project management practices to a product-forward framework for portfolio management based on value
  • At Apple, he designed and led the delivery of a learning intern program for training employees in retail roles (Apple Stores) into corporate positions in the software development and testing organization
  • At Cprime, Chris led the learning practice's innovation/R&D team to find and scale new learning products, ultimately building a catalog of over 100 courses and generating more than $20M in commercial training revenue
  • At Morgan Stanley, he led the design and delivery of an academy program for new engineers on site reliability and data engineering best practices
  • Chris has designed large amounts of AI enablement for the US Department of Defense, where he developed a large library of learning modules on AI strategy and execution topics for a huge range of roles in the defense ecosystem (about 4 million learners)
 

My certifications

  • PMP, ICP-ACC, ICP-AHR and IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner