Ask Joe Depa what he does, and his initial reply is standard fare for someone working in a global advisory firm. “My focus is on bridging the gap between emerging technology and business transformation,” says EY’s global Chief Innovation Officer.

So far, so text book. But drill down, and a different picture starts to emerge. Depa, who previously worked at Accenture and then, Emory University, has deeper and more personal motivations for putting technology to work.

At Accenture he worked with Fortune 100 firms to use AI and analytics to improve their business operations. He had, he says, “an early curiosity [for] solving complex problems, a passion for how emerging technology can drive change and how data is key to powerful transformation.”

But he continues: “Later, at Emory University, my focus on precision medicine became personal. I saw firsthand how AI could revolutionise healthcare, from streamlining clinical trials to improving patient care.

“After losing my daughter, Melissa, to childhood cancer, I doubled down on the impact AI could have for good... These experiences reinforced my belief that innovation is all about making a real impact with technology.”

This saw Depa spend a year at Emory, focusing on precision medicine, before moving back into the consulting world at EY. There, he works on innovation and emerging technologies, as well as being responsible for the firm’s data office, and “responsible AI orchestration of that data”.

Ensuring data quality is another key part of Depa’s remit. Poor quality data is holding organisations back in both AI and analytics, he says. “Data quality is still a primary topic for most organisations at the moment,” he suggests.

What he describes as “weak data foundations” are a barrier to innovation and efficiency. Fixing this means changing the role of data officers too. “We can now use AI to create more, high quality data, and we can also leverage synthetic data. It actually might be more effective from a cost perspective. “It allows AI training without using, for example, sensitive patient data.”

Putting AI to work

And the role of the innovation officer is broader than just that of data custodian, or guardian of AI initiatives.

“Whether that's quantum or blockchain or crypto or physical AI or robotics, what we're focused on here at EY is how do we apply innovation both to EY but also to our clients. And then the goal is to help transform the world for the better.”

Part of this work inevitably involves AI. EY is spending $1.4bn on what it calls an AI-powered transformation. “Instead of simply advising clients on AI, we treated ourselves as ‘Client Zero,’ and integrated AI into our very own business operations first,” he says.

“This allowed us to refine our approach, understand the challenges firsthand, and develop practical solutions that could then be scaled for clients. The result? We’ve seen a transformation in how we work internally, from automating manual tasks to enhancing decision-making and improving client outcomes.”

The role, though, means balancing a watching brief on future technologies with a day to day focus on practical improvements and results, in terms of hard numbers. This applies both to client work and EY’s internal projects, according to Depa.

At one client – a global logistics company he does not name, a new model using real-time data and predictive analytics reduced costs by 15%, optimised inventory levels and led to a 65% improvement in service levels. “This wasn’t about adopting AI for the sake of it, it was about using technology in a way that directly improved business performance.” 

EY has some 100,000 users a month on its EY.AI platform which, he argues, is already bringing benefits.

“The way that we're thinking about it and talking to our clients about it is [AI gives] the ability to do two things right now,” Depa explains. “One is to optimise your existing infrastructure. And what I mean by that is that you can use AI to help power the way that you're doing things. And you could do that in a way that's going to drive efficiency. That efficiency is going to create cost savings. Those cost savings, you should now invest in the future. So optimise and invest.”

Investment in AI tools, he says, has brought softer benefits too.

“Users are showing better engagement. They're more likely to be retained and they're  frankly happier about their jobs. They're finding that AI is helping them to do their jobs more effectively and therefore they're more engaged as an employee.”

Tapping into innovation

Another aspect of Depa’s role, though, is tapping into innovative thinking within the firm. EY has 400,000 employees, far far more than any one executive can oversee.

“It is happening way too fast for any one of us to have all the answers and therefore I need to make sure that I have visibility into what’s happening across our ecosystem,” says Depa. “We've got 400,000 employees and I can tell you that of those 400,000 employees, some of the most innovative work is happening at in locations that I may not have visibility of, from people that I may not have visibility of.

“So how you harness that innovation without controlling or orchestrating it too much is the key to success.”

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He cites one example, of a junior manager who used EY.AI to run a discounted cash flow analysis. “He did it in a way that allowed him to go from about two weeks of manual labour to about two hours of labour. He showed me how he did this. That came to me because he happened to email me and ask for a meeting.

“The question then becomes, how do we find those managers, and particularly some of the next generational talent that’s coming into the workforce and that is really digitally native.

“How do we leverage the ideas that they're coming up with like that in a way that's not going to stifle them but help drive and accelerate the innovation?

“I think our job sometimes in these roles is to is to make sure that we're finding ways to collect and harvest what's happening across the innovation ecosystem… it’s about a distributed model that’s going to allow you to continue to innovate.

“The distributed model allows you to continue to innovate closer to the business, and to invest in ideas that we think are going to be accelerated.”

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