#183 Embracing AI, the cultural aspects and shift required to get the investment and buy-in through essential collaboration with Anuj Anand, CIO at Ausenco

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In this episode, Felipe caught up with Anuj Anand, CIO at Ausenco on his career path through the company from System Engineer to CIO. It’s a very real interview in which Anuj shares some very honest life lessons that have helped to get him to where he is at today. On presenting his first 5-year tech strategy to the board he was told that was definitely what they didn’t want to see! Undeterred he went away only to return and nail it! He shares some of the common challenges faced by CIOs today across everything from cybersecurity to recruitment. He also shares how AI is influencing their data strategy and the importance of building diverse tech teams.

Hear from Anuj live during our upcoming event, Advancing AI Sydney!

Enjoy the show.

Thanks to our sponsor Talent Insights Group!

“That’s such a critical point of leadership to understand, how to get the best in people, and how are they going to react to different approaches, and some people can take the highest feedback. Others you have to be a bit softer, but also changes over time. ”

— Anuj Anand, CIO at Ausenco

Hear from Anuj live during our upcoming event, Advancing AI Sydney!

What We Discussed

0:00 Introduction

21:12 How do you think about different leadership approaches in organisations?

26:12 What are the benefits that you're seeing from having longer tenures in this space?

31:52 If there's good leadership, and if things are going the right way, maybe a longer tenure can help on that side. What do you think?

34:33 How have you created and helped navigate that change for the organisation?

38:35 What your foray into AI has been? How did it start? What are the adoption and use cases have been?

45:19 Can you tell us a bit about some of the applications or some of the areas that you focusing on? Or how you're choosing what to focus on?

47:19 How are you focusing on the cultural side to help make the AI adoption and digital transformation a success?

49:54 How have you navigated collaborations in the last couple of years?

52:54 Tell us about your bit about your views on diversity?

Episode Highlights

If you don't hear it firsthand, it's gonna take a long time to get that realization and that growth, but they gave it to you straight. You showed why they were picking you as a result, like you just took it from one level to the next so quickly.

I feel like the biggest pros, the key stakeholders, systems, what's needed to make a change, how you can influence the change, and how you can actually get change happening to the right effect.

A lot of the perception of IT previously, within our business, and I think some other businesses have been that they're behind the keyboard. They'll plug in some cables, and they're not like a partner. And what we've managed to do is change to be a business partner, because we've got people like this on the team, we've got people that actually understand and can have the conversation saying, this is why you've got this legacy system, this is why this information is there.

You shouldn't just be the one drinking the Kool-Aid and looking at this vision, you need to be able to communicate to people this vision and ensure that they see why you're seeing this to be such a big deal. If you believe that it's going to be game-changing, they shouldn't believe it, too. If I wanted seed funding for something, I need to be able to explain it to the investors. You want to come across and be passionate about it.

I hear from so many people that come to our team, from larger organizations than ours, how frustrating it is to just make simple changes and get buy-in from key stakeholders. That's probably why there's a high turnover and scenarios because they go in and they expect to achieve this greatness, that doesn't happen.

AI is where I would say, for most organizations, I would say the future is really within this space. Whether it's five years from now, whether it's 10 years from now, I think the investments we're making today, and the value and the efficiencies we're going to get for our business, and potentially a lot of other ones is going to be within this AI space.

With the shorter tenure, one big advantage I find is you get a lot of new thinking, coming in from external because sometimes you can be walking or looking at a problem or what working with blinkers on because you don't know what else is happening outside. So there are learnings that we drive within our team, and we've got some people on the team that are always reading about what's new, what's out there. And what's happening. What are some of the case studies that have been successful and not successful.

They need to see your vision, and literally the people within the organization, or your stakeholders, your investors, they have seed funding. They have venture capitalists that are coming in to invest in this project. Whether it's not financially or whether it is financially. Just believing that the project's going to be successful, if you can get them on-site and believing that projects going to be successful, and they're going to be reaping the rewards from it 100%. You're going to be successful in your change management process.

Having the key stakeholders is imperative to any of us. You need the right stakeholders for your project. Influencing people and bringing them along for that journey to show them what that success is going to look like. 

Each one of those experiences plays such an important part in your opinions, and you're working today. Who you are as a person, your personalities today that played such a big part in it.

At Data Futurology, we are always working to bring you use cases, new approaches and everything related to the most relevant topics in data science to help you get the most value out of these technologies! Check out our upcoming events for more amazing content.