Using her experience in movement building and corporate responsibility, Maria currently focuses her work on the intersection of AI safety and its capacity to make our lives better. 

She is the Founder of Plan A, a global initiative mobilizing leaders across sectors to ensure humanity not only survives but thrives in the age of artificial intelligence. Together with RAND, Plan-A developed an experience that reimagines their Cold War–era strategic exercises that helped develop intellectual foundations and frameworks for nuclear deterrence, non-proliferation, and misuse — for the age of AI. It’s a highly interactive methodology that helps leaders grapple with plausible AI futures and begin translating insight into action.

More broadly, Maria collaborates with technologists, academics, and organizations to promote responsible AI practices while utilizing its transformative potential. 

Maria is a sought-after board member and adviser. Maria will be announced as Chair of the Board of Directors of LawZero, Yoshua Bengio, Turing Prize winner and AI creator. She Chairs a confidential AI & National Security Working Group with former National Security Advisors, the world’s leading experts on presidential and government legal authorities and AI policy.  

She also sits on the boards of the NHL Seattle Kraken and is Chair Emeritus of The Girl Effect. Her previous board experience includes major companies and organizations -- Cloudflare (world’s leading leader in connectivity and cybersecurity company), the MIT Media Lab, GoFundMe, the SAFECO Corporation, the University of Washington Foundation, the International Commission on Labor Standards, the Eastern Congo Initiative and the board of the World Surfing League.

Maria’s deep experience in operations, growth, and innovation stem from her previous professional successes. She began her career as a journalist and reporter, and then moved to the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Media Affairs. She managed communications and public relations for MCI Communications, served as Director of Public Affairs for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and led Corporate Affairs for Microsoft’s European operations in Paris, France.

Maria is widely known for her transformative work with Nike. She joined the company in 1998 as the first Vice President of Corporate Responsibility, tasked with taking on the labor crisis facing the brand as it came under fire for overseas working conditions. As a result, Maria overhauled Nike’s general business practices and the company’s global footprint in arenas like sustainability and labor, leading to industry-changing policies. As a result of her work, Nike is regularly ranked among top Corporate Social Responsibility efforts worldwide.

In 2005 Maria founded the Nike Foundation, focusing on the potential of adolescent girls in poverty. She hypothesized that investing in adolescent girls would pay enormous dividends -- not just for girls, but for their families, communities, and nations. Alongside economists from the World Bank, the Nike Foundation demonstrated how empowering girls could be the greatest point of leverage in breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty. This idea, which would come to be known as the “Girl Effect,” became the spark for a movement. In 2015, having invested $130 million through 150 partners across 90 countries, Nike transitioned the Girl Effect into an independent organization. Eitel is the chair emeritus of the Girl Effect Board of Directors.

Maria gives speeches domestically and internationally, at gatherings like Google Zeitgeist, the World Economic Forum, and the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. She was recognized by Fast Company as part of their “League of Extraordinary Women.” 

A native of Everett, Washington, Maria holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University and Master of Science degree from Georgetown University, as well as an Honorary Doctorate of Humanity from Babson College. She is a graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program and a Visiting Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.  

She lives in Paris, Seattle and London.