After more than 20 years at Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft, Equifax and AT&T, the founder and CEO of Koach Kam Consulting is giving organizations a practical, people-centered plan for putting AI to work. Photography by Jevone Moore, Full Image 360.
Kamika Dillard spent two decades as the person leaders called when a plan actually had to happen. Over more than 20 years at Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft, Equifax and AT&T, she watched smart leaders build solid strategies and lose them somewhere between the boardroom and the frontline. Along the way she collected the tools to close that gap: an MBA in Global Business and Finance from Pepperdine University, a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, a Six Sigma Green Belt and an ICF Associate Certified Coach credential. Today she brings that expertise to Koach Kam Consulting, the firm she founded in 2024 to help organizations stop losing good strategy to bad execution through practical AI adoption, stronger operations and better service experiences.
Twenty Years in the Making
“The plan was never the problem. The execution was,” Dillard says of the pattern she saw at every company she worked for. At Microsoft, where she spent seven years as a Lead Strategic Business Program Manager, she supported more than $1.5 billion in revenue opportunities. When she was laid off in August 2025, the only question that mattered was whose problem she wanted to solve next. Her answer was every organization losing good strategy to bad execution, especially small businesses and public agencies that cannot afford to waste a year, and Koach Kam Consulting became the home for that work.
The firm has moved quickly. Koach Kam is certified as a WBE through WBEC-West and holds CWBE, MBE and CMWBE certifications. It is also registered as a government supplier, and Dillard is a member of NAWBO. Today the firm works with women-owned businesses, nonprofits, associations and public-serving organizations.
Document First, Then Automate
For a lean team, Dillard says, using AI well starts with documenting the repeatable processes. “Before any tool, I ask what we do over and over, who does it and what the steps are,” she says. Those steps become workflows that her team tests and tweaks as they go, and a person reviews the output. “AI never gets the final say in anything,” she says. Relationships, judgment and strategy stay with people. The repeatable, rules-based tasks are where she leans in fully.
The biggest opportunity she sees for owners is documenting all of their processes, especially the ones that live in the head of an employee who has been with the company for ten years. “That knowledge walks out the door when they do,” she says.
“You cannot automate, delegate or improve what you have never written down. Document first, then decide where AI belongs.”
Kamika Dillard
The Productivity Procrastination Trap
Dillard has a name for a habit she sees in many new business owners: productivity procrastination. “Staying busy feels like action,” she says. Her answer is to hand those tasks to AI and spend the time on the hard work of business development, making calls and being in the field. The small businesses that get the most out of AI, she says, prioritize revenue-generating activities over work that is productive but not value-added.
The approach matters even more for women-owned businesses running on small teams. “Many of us are the CEO, the marketer, the bookkeeper and customer service all in one day,” she says. “AI buys back the hours so we can spend them on clients, relationships and strategy.”
An Entrepreneur Long Before the Title
Dillard was building businesses while still in corporate America. Almost 12 years ago she launched 30 Day Test Prep as a side hustle, turning her gift for taking tests into a program for students and families built around the power of 30: 30 days, 30 drills and 30 strategies. She created Fail Forward Coaching six months before her layoff and had planned to leave corporate in 2028, but the timeline sped up. “The 9 to 5 was never the destination,” she says. “It was the training ground and, honestly, the investor.”
Fail Forward Coaching grew out of the same moment. “I knew what it felt like to have a title taken away and have to rebuild an identity,” she says. The practice now offers three signature programs: D.O.T. (Do One Thing), a 30-day sprint toward one meaningful goal; R.I.S.E. (Reflect, Innovate, Strategize, Execute), an eight-week program for high achievers; and V.I.S.I.O.N. (Visualize, Initiate, Strategize, Implement, Optimize, Navigate), a 12-week leadership intensive. It also hosts team workshops and the quarterly Get Strategy Done Retreat, which gives participants protected time to move forward on priorities they keep putting off.
Today a small team that includes a digital brand manager, an operations coordinator and a podcast editor keeps her portfolio moving. That portfolio also includes Black Women S.A.V.E. Black Women, a podcast and community dedicated to helping Black women Support, Amplify, Validate and Elevate one another. She calls the podcast the heartbeat of her work and 30 Day Test Prep the steady engine. Koach Kam Consulting, she says, is where the growth is. “Women-owned businesses and public agencies are being told to adopt AI with no roadmap,” she says, “and that is exactly the problem I built this firm to solve.”
Every Contract Is a Seat
Dillard’s biggest goal for 2027 begins with people. She plans to grow Koach Kam enough to hire more Black women who have been laid off, while building community events for the podcast and turning Fail Forward Files, her Substack, into a book.
“Every contract we win is a seat I get to fill.”
Kamika Dillard
She knows what it feels like to lose a title and have to rebuild, and she wants to build companies where talented Black women land, lead and grow. “I spent twenty years making other companies’ strategies real,” she says. “Building my own team, and watching them become leaders, is the part I cannot wait for.”
For more stories of women building on their own terms, explore Bacon’s Founder Spotlight series.
About Kamika Dillard
Kamika T. Dillard is a tech strategist, entrepreneur, consultant and leadership coach with more than 20 years of experience at Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft, Equifax and AT&T. She is the founder and CEO of Koach Kam Consulting and the founder of Fail Forward Coaching, Black Women S.A.V.E. Black Women and 30 Day Test Prep. She holds an MBA from Pepperdine University. Learn more at koachkam.com.
