A powerhouse panel featuring Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder and Alison Felix spotlighted how women’s sports, storytelling, and sustainable infrastructure are shaping a new era.
Under the golden skies of Cannes, a new kind of power dinner unfolded, one that celebrated not just the legends of women’s sports but the future being designed in their image.
At this year’s Deep Blue Women’s Sports Yacht Club in Cannes, Autodesk and Boardroom joined forces with Always Alpha to host the Legends Dinner, an intimate beachside gathering honoring the leaders shaping the future of women’s sports. Set against the backdrop of Maëma Beach, the evening brought together changemakers across sports, entertainment, media, and tech for an impactful conversation on design, equity, and long-term investment in women athletes. The evening drew a powerhouse guest list, including Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, Ashlyn Harris, Kirsten Ferguson, and many others who’ve championed progress on and off the field.
The panel, featuring Olympic icon Allyson Felix and Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder, emphasized how storytelling, infrastructure, and sustainability can converge to elevate the women’s sports movement. Treseder spoke to Autodesk’s unique position at the intersection of sport and innovation.
“Women’s sports aren’t just having a moment — they’re a movement,” she said. “And for brands, this is like buying Bitcoin early. Now is the time to get in.”
Felix echoed this sentiment, sharing her journey of building an athlete-first career and the need to ensure Olympic legacies are both world-class and human-centered.
“We can’t just support athletes on the field; we have to support them as whole people,” Felix said.
The dinner set the tone for a larger story about leadership, vision, and designing a more inclusive world, one Treseder is driving not just in sport, but across education, AI, and global infrastructure. Let’s dive into her full story.
Subscribe for the biggest stories in the business of sports and entertainment, daily.
Meet Marketing Maven Dara Treseder
When Dara Treseder joined Autodesk as Chief Marketing Officer, she was fueled by equal parts passion and curiosity.
“Our software is used to design and make anything,” Tresedder told Boardroom in an interview. “The phone in your hand, the car you drive, the bridge you cross, the movies and games your kids love.”
That sweeping impact — and the chance to lead a company helping shape the world, literally — was what pulled her in. But Treseder didn’t just want to tell Autodesk’s story. She wanted to prove it through action. Today, she oversees not just global marketing but also the company’s education business team, one of Autodesk’s most powerful tools for expanding access and building a more future-ready workforce. To date, over 100 million students and educators at more than 160,000 schools have accessed Autodesk’s professional-grade software for free.
“It’s about equipping the next generation with the tools to design and make anything,” she said, “but also to design and make things better.”
That “better” is the throughline in Treseder’s leadership style — equal parts head and heart. For her, it’s not about striking a perfect balance; it’s about finding the proper harmony for each moment.
“Marketing is both an art and a science,” she explained. “We start with insights and data, but we also have to create space for bold, creative ideas. … Sometimes it’s 90/10, sometimes 50/50. The key is knowing what’s needed to make something excellent.”
One of the most visible examples of this vision in action is Autodesk’s groundbreaking partnership with the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As the official Design and Make platform, Autodesk is retrofitting more than 40 venues across Los Angeles, adopting a sustainability-first approach that aligns with LA28’s “no-new-permanent-venues” plan. Treseder said this will be the most sustainable Games ever, and that Autodesk plans to leave LA better than it found it. She noted the company’s software had already been used to design the Olympic Village for the Paris Games, which has since been repurposed as affordable housing.
“At Autodesk, we do the work before we tell the story,” she added. “That’s how you build credibility.”
The brand’s AI capabilities are also part of that story. A recent Autodesk study analyzing nearly 3 million job listings found mentions of AI have surged by over 114% in 2023, 120% in 2024, and 56% year-to-date in 2025. As Treseder sees it, AI fluency is becoming a baseline expectation, not just for technical roles but across the board. That’s why Autodesk continues to invest in AI-powered tools and ensure students can access them, including in the greater LA community.
“I’m passionate about access,” she said. “We’re making sure people have the opportunity to not only use Autodesk software, but also gain the skills that will define the jobs of the future.”
For Treseder, curiosity, conviction, and courage form the foundation of her leadership. She speaks openly about career risks, like interviewing for her first CMO job while visibly pregnant, and how those choices shaped her approach. She said this experience helped her learn to trust her instincts, be authentic, and lead with clarity.
“Great leaders don’t just build teams — they build trust,” Treseder said.
That same trust now fuels Autodesk’s approach to innovation, inclusion, and impact. Whether it’s enabling students to experiment with design, helping creatives build sustainable products, or transforming Olympic infrastructure, Treseder is clear on the mission: “Design and make a better world for all.”
And she’s not just saying it; she’s doing the work.
Read More:
A Night for the W: Inside the Boardroom and Coinbase All-Star Party in Indianapolis
MLB All-Stars Sound Off: Automatic Ball-Strike Challenge, Changing the Game, & More
MLBPA Leader Tony Clark Talks Salary Cap, Revenue Sharing, Winning
Emmy Nominations Prove There’s Too Much Great TV and Not Enough Room
Did MLB Finally Crack the Code to the All-Star Game?
