00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:12
Unknown
I mean, I've had a very unorthodox career, and I actually think that those tend to make for the best stories.

00:00:07:12 - 00:00:20:24
Unknown
If you believe we can change the narrative, if you believe we can change our communities, if you believe we can change the outcomes, then we can change the world. I'm Rob Richardson. Welcome to Disruption Now.

00:00:20:24 - 00:00:40:16
Unknown
Welcome to Disruption. Now I'm your host, the moderator Rob Richardson, with me as is my friend and Trailblazer Iliana Oris Valiente. She is a leader in all things future work. She is the managing director of Canada Innovation for a Center sits on a lot of boards of.

00:00:40:22 - 00:00:59:17
Unknown
But she's going to talk to you about she's been a leader in blockchain, a leader in all things digital technology. Now I she's done so much to be so young. Like, what do you like 25 likes is genetics. Genetics means I will look young for a long time to come. But I am younger than most people would expect.

00:00:59:19 - 00:01:17:15
Unknown
Right? But you've done a lot. So thank you for coverage, Eliana. How are you? I'm doing really well. I actually just got back from New York, settling into the cold of Toronto for the next couple of weeks. Okay, But you're all all over the place, so I'm sure you're going to be hopping and jumping somewhere else. I would love to talk to you about that.

00:01:17:15 - 00:01:29:13
Unknown
So. All right, let's just you started so how did you get into this line of work, of working at a center and just being all things like futuristic? Like what brought you to this? How did you get here? It's a good question.

00:01:29:13 - 00:01:37:00
Unknown
I mean, I've had a very unorthodox career, and I actually think that those tend to make for the best stories.

00:01:37:02 - 00:02:00:15
Unknown
I started my career thinking I was going to work for the United Nations and pursuing an international development sort of path ended up pivoting and doing a finance and accounting pathway instead. I'm a chartered accountant by training, and so I had worked in tax doing cross-border tax for high net worth individuals. I had worked in the world of audit.

00:02:00:15 - 00:02:13:10
Unknown
I went into the corporate finance domains, which I enjoyed, and that really introduced me to a lot of tech companies. And I realized that the tech clients were my favorite clients by by a long shot.

00:02:13:10 - 00:02:23:19
Unknown
And it wasn't long before I was introduced to the concept of Bitcoin and crypto and blockchain more generally and honestly, that just took me down a deep, deep, deep rabbit hole.

00:02:24:00 - 00:02:30:01
Unknown
And because of my accounting background previously, I was always thinking in terms of ledgers. Anyways,

00:02:30:01 - 00:02:45:22
Unknown
what does company have on their books? Company B, How do you compare the two? And so for me it was such a natural realization that, wait a second, if we move towards distributed ledgers, maybe the role of auditors will change. Maybe the function of audit will change.

00:02:45:24 - 00:03:05:07
Unknown
Does then the upfront finance function also need to change? And one thing led to another and I became known as one of the thought leaders in the blockchain world, working with clients across industries around the world. And I had built the first ever blockchain consulting business

00:03:05:07 - 00:03:11:03
Unknown
at any of the large firms when I was at Deloitte. Yeah, essentially.

00:03:11:03 - 00:03:26:18
Unknown
And the reason that Deloitte got into the blockchain space and today audits companies that are in the industry but also more broadly participates. And so fast forward, I lofted my own thing for a bit, ended up getting approached by Accenture and

00:03:26:18 - 00:03:36:15
Unknown
they really wanted me to come on board. And so that's the story of how I ended up becoming the youngest ever managing director at Accenture in its history.

00:03:36:17 - 00:03:42:00
Unknown
And we're a massive organization, you know, 750,000 employees

00:03:42:00 - 00:03:59:11
Unknown
globally. And I was that big over Giant. Were the 150,000 thousand, correct. Wow. And I mean, we service I don't know what the exact stat is right now, but over 85% of the Fortune 500

00:03:59:11 - 00:04:07:23
Unknown
in some way, shape or form and so when I joined the firm originally, I was the global blockchain innovation lead.

00:04:08:00 - 00:04:36:16
Unknown
Sometimes I was in two countries a week educating boards of directors and senior executives about the future, where it was going, how this technology, alongside with others, is going to disrupt a lot of their processes and just their business strategy. And then fast forward and I was essentially tapped on the shoulder to say, Hey, we're launching a series of innovation hubs in key strategic locations, and we'd love to to build something in in Canada.

00:04:36:18 - 00:04:46:13
Unknown
And so I ended up taking on and being appointed into into that role and really building our innovation practice from zero

00:04:46:13 - 00:05:06:14
Unknown
to today were what, a $750 million worth of sales influence business that I've been able to build in the past five, five or so years. So I'm pretty proud of that. And then I've been asked if I would officially take on all of our ESG business and, you know, nurture and incubate that.

00:05:06:19 - 00:05:27:08
Unknown
So that's been a focus of mine as well in the in the past year or so, since that's essentially my life in a nutshell. That's a lot of life. But so you got to block it sound like it sounds like the the blocks of being in blockchain was kind of your central point to differentiate you, right? And you jumped into that very early into the space.

00:05:27:10 - 00:05:56:08
Unknown
What what were the initial challenges then and what do you see as the current state of blockchain now where we're going forward? And that's a broad question overall, but I still feel like we I felt like we were going really far and if I like, we were going to just take over the world in terms of blockchain technologies in 20 and 21 and I feel like things are quite a bit different, but I'd love to get your assessment about where where we've been and where you saw the challenges and what you see as the current landscape.

00:05:57:13 - 00:06:06:19
Unknown
And I mean, I've seen this industry evolve from a front row seat from the earliest, earliest days. I mean, I remember a time when I was

00:06:06:19 - 00:06:24:12
Unknown
in Vancouver going to a meet up at Meetup.com back in the day when people didn't really do that and finding an unmarked door going down a set of stairs that were creaky, turning around the corner and thinking to myself, you know, this may be one of those stories where I never come back alive.

00:06:24:18 - 00:06:43:21
Unknown
And it's like, Ileana, why don't you have every alarm bell in your body going off of your going to this like underground meet up for this Bitcoin thing that nobody really knows anything about. And I turn the corner and I walk in a roomful of men, about 20 of them. Some of them look like they haven't showered in a couple of days.

00:06:43:22 - 00:06:54:22
Unknown
And on the screen is Vitalik Buterin dialing in on a Zoom call from from Toronto and just having a conversation with the folks that were in the room. That's how early

00:06:54:22 - 00:07:12:18
Unknown
this this was. And at that time, the reason I got super excited about the industry was the sheer volume of incredibly smart, literally brilliant people that were spending time and energy in the domain.

00:07:12:18 - 00:07:44:21
Unknown
And to me, as more of a layperson, I don't come from a deep computer science background. For example, like if all of these people are so fascinated by this concept of consensus mechanisms and decentralization and distributed finance, there's something in here that is really worth exploring and digging into. And at the time, pretty much everyone in the industry, while they were really smart, they were fairly incompetent at the communication

00:07:44:21 - 00:07:49:03
Unknown
side of things to go ahead.

00:07:49:05 - 00:08:06:10
Unknown
But I mean, yeah, as an industry, as the blockchain industry, we have a bit of a marketing problem actually, we have a big marketing problem in that it tends to attract all of the really technically minded folks, which is amazing, but it tends to leave out or alienate the non-technical folks and you need those

00:08:06:10 - 00:08:09:18
Unknown
in order to drive the mass adoption curve.

00:08:09:22 - 00:08:53:03
Unknown
So in the early days, what I spend my, my time doing was just educating and evangelizing in the more tradition channel world. I'm using this in air quotes because I had access to a lot of senior executives in banking, in legal and finance and government, and they didn't have an allergic reaction when I walked into a room because I could wear a suit and speak their language and demystify what this tech was and to educate and say, hey, this is not for money laundering or drug dealers or anything else of the sort, but this is a payments layer for the Internet, which we didn't have initially.

00:08:53:03 - 00:09:18:01
Unknown
And this is kind of a big deal and it's going to be transformative. So that was a challenge we had back in the day around raising awareness. But what I've seen unfortunately in the hype cycle of, you know, 2016, 2017, when ICOs became more of a thing, is you saw the the entry of the charlatans

00:09:18:01 - 00:09:21:19
Unknown
and the snake oil sales people to that.

00:09:21:21 - 00:09:40:13
Unknown
Exactly. And then when we had the NFT boom, same thing where there was just over abundance of projects that were fake. They were just there to raise money and then immediately have the founders disappear off the face of the planet. I actually remember this is a fun story to reminisce on.

00:09:40:13 - 00:09:48:19
Unknown
I would get pings back in 2017 from friends of mine saying, Hey, I didn't realize that you were advising such and such ICO project.

00:09:48:21 - 00:10:14:17
Unknown
I'm like, I'm I'm not. Why? Why do you ask it? Say, well, I noticed that they listed your face and your picture on their website, followed by sending a cease and desist letter like, Please take me off. Otherwise the lawyers are going to be on on your case. Because really what they were trying to do was borrow my credibility and reputation, say, if Ilana's involved, and maybe this provides an error of legitimacy.

00:10:14:22 - 00:10:38:11
Unknown
And so that really turned me off of the the industry just because it wasn't the original intentions behind why I ended up getting getting into the space. And I actually think that that deeply hurts the credibility of the industry overall, whether it was ICOs or whether it was some of the kind of tea projects that just didn't have the substantive value behind it.

00:10:38:17 - 00:10:45:14
Unknown
And then now with the fall of RTX and Sam Bankman-Fried and the news,

00:10:45:14 - 00:11:06:21
Unknown
you never want to be as an industry, the story that's dominating the evening news, that's never a good sign. Morning news. Fine. That's when all the business happenings are recorded. Evening news Is all the scandals happening? That it's all the scandals. Yeah, exactly. And so governance, the lack of governance is really problematic.

00:11:06:21 - 00:11:11:13
Unknown
The good news is I'm starting to get more phone calls from companies in the Web3 space

00:11:11:13 - 00:11:33:22
Unknown
saying so as a result of the recent events happening, we're really reevaluating our board of directors structure or the fact that we don't have one or we don't have the best governance process. Now, like Ileana, can you come in and help us think through this and what are we missing and sit on the board and so on and so forth.

00:11:34:01 - 00:11:55:09
Unknown
So I'm hoping that this serves as a wake up call for the companies operating in, what, three? Just because you're up three does not give you a license to completely throw away all of the other best practices of operating a business. Look, you can't use new tools to break old rules like period. Like we can we can come up with new technology.

00:11:55:09 - 00:12:13:21
Unknown
And if I kill somebody, it's still murder, Right? So why did you commit fraud? Is still fraud. So it's not. It's nothing. You're not creating anything new if you're not creating actual value. And that's what folks have to really think about within Web three. It still goes back to the fundamentals. What problem are you solving? How are you adding value?

00:12:13:23 - 00:12:35:15
Unknown
How can you help your customers through this? And so I hope to be one of those voices, as you are one of the Steve Jobs of the Obama. I'm not saying I'm no, I'm saying we want to hopefully can do what they did when Obama did for politics was Steve Jobs, I think did or computing to make it interesting and to understand how the technology can really connect to everyday people is something that I feel is really missing within the industry.

00:12:35:15 - 00:12:50:16
Unknown
So, you know, Ileana, we're going to do something. I want to team up with you, something on that. I don't know what that is yet and I'm recruiting her. Hard to do some stuff, so I've been working. So hopefully we can we'll talk about that at some point in the future. So. Okay, what if you didn't need money?

00:12:50:18 - 00:13:22:02
Unknown
What would you do? What would your life be? What would you what would be your passion if you didn't need money? What would you, Ileana, to be doing right now? I don't know if it would change drastically, Ali, to be to be honest. So I love cabins, cabins in woods, to go set, read endlessly, collect ideas. But then I enjoy people and I joke that I really enjoy collecting interesting humans and hearing what they're up to

00:13:22:02 - 00:13:27:10
Unknown
and then being able to connect them with others that I've come across in my in my travels.

00:13:27:12 - 00:14:03:10
Unknown
I mean, I place on average maybe one person a month for every two months in a new job for fun. I'm not a recruiter. I don't run an agency, but I come across so many folks in my adventures and then it's the connecting of the dots of, Hey, you should really talk to two. So and so, whether it be startups that are looking for investors, investors that are looking for places to deploy their capital or filling a really hard to find board seat or senior exec position.

00:14:03:15 - 00:14:28:05
Unknown
So I would continue to do that. And I love communicating ideas, especially the ideas I've learned by reading or by talking to those interesting people. And so for me, I would want to continue to evangelize and help people prepare for where the future is going so that they're ready for it as opposed to being caught off guard. And I have, as my parents joke, the gift of the gab.

00:14:28:05 - 00:14:51:05
Unknown
And so for me, the ability to stand on a stage and use that as a platform to educate hundreds or thousands of people of where things are going and what it means for them specifically, I would still want to do that and I would still want to do the board of directors work to be able to contribute some of the skills that I have towards those organizations.

00:14:51:10 - 00:15:13:10
Unknown
So yeah, it's not that different from today other than I would be spending more time in the cabins completely off grid. But now there's just so much interesting stuff happening that I'm getting a little bit of FOMO to be able to pull myself away. I'm actually planning a spa weekend to speak to No one this weekend coming up, and I'm so excited.

00:15:13:12 - 00:15:30:11
Unknown
That's good, though. So. Okay, let's talk about the future. You said once in a speech that if you blink, the future is here and you often advise clients because you know you're you guys are in a hockey to go where the puck is is heading, right. How do you set up processes to know where the puck is going?

00:15:30:12 - 00:15:46:20
Unknown
How do you advise businesses on doing just that? Well, a lot of times and understandably so, a business leader is so focused on the day to day of the operations of whatever field they happen to be and,

00:15:46:20 - 00:16:00:19
Unknown
and it's actually quite unnatural for them to pop their heads up above the day to day and look around and figure out, well, what's next, where should I be going, where should I be investing?

00:16:00:21 - 00:16:26:07
Unknown
And so the best systematic hack I would recommend for business leaders is to surround themselves with a mini board of advisors, if you will, of people that they can get together with on at least a quarterly basis who are outside of their day to day industry to get caught up on what else is happening in the rest of the world that they might need to incorporate into their into their business.

00:16:26:09 - 00:16:31:17
Unknown
I mean, that's the role I tend to play when I sit on a board of directors

00:16:31:17 - 00:16:48:13
Unknown
or when Accenture gets pulled in by a client to be an advisor. As an example, I remember when I was first approached to sit on the board of directors at Sunnybrook Hospital, which is considered one of the top two hospitals in Canada and one of the top 20 globally.

00:16:48:17 - 00:17:19:12
Unknown
Initially my reaction to the recruiter was, Why me? I'm not a doctor. I don't have a deep health background of advised some clients in the health care space and the response from the recruiter was, that's precisely why the board is interested in your your profile. You come from an innovation first background in a technology first background, and you have a completely different set of demographics from your age to your your background growing up.

00:17:19:18 - 00:17:35:14
Unknown
And that's the outside in perspective we need to include in the board. We don't need more people who deeply understand health or insurance or any of those related domains. We already have those really well well covered. So

00:17:35:14 - 00:17:46:18
Unknown
it really boils down to the business leaders to make sure that they are surrounding themselves with voices that are not singing the same the same chorus.

00:17:46:20 - 00:18:10:07
Unknown
Yes. So, okay. So having a board of advisors, anything else you would recommend? Is there any books or anything that you do that that keeps you up or any other things that you think kind of helps you see possible trends in the future? Honestly, I think people act as some of the best filtering mechanisms. There's no shortage of books, there's no shortage of podcasts.

00:18:10:09 - 00:18:35:08
Unknown
But I also know it's unrealistic to ask someone to just randomly go and listen to 5 hours of content because realistically they won't. And so if they have people that they trust that are from all over the place, that's usually how you'll get exposed to things. And then once something piques your interest, then of course you can go deep down the rabbit hole of learning more.

00:18:35:10 - 00:19:07:20
Unknown
Yeah. So what would your advice to businesses right now if he had to say the most essential trend to understand and follow right now, I can guess this is going to be what would it be and why? I yeah, I mean, how did I get ding, ding, ding, ding, dang bingo, bingo. Because unlike the metaverse or the trends that we saw around Internet of Things that only apply in certain instances and certain use cases with AI and joining AI in particular, the impacts are widespread.

00:19:08:00 - 00:19:18:04
Unknown
You can't hide from this. I mean, I was just having a conversation a couple of months ago with a woman on my team. She's a really talented graphic designer, creative director,

00:19:18:04 - 00:19:26:21
Unknown
and she was sharing with me her desire to do more branding work and to expand her portfolio in that direction and acquire more skills. And I said, Okay, great.

00:19:26:21 - 00:19:56:15
Unknown
I'm super supportive of your continued career growth, but have you started thinking about using all the journey tools to automate bits and pieces of your current role? Because I'm not planning on backfilling your role as it currently exists. And she looked at me and, you know, I mean, I haven't really had time. I've been so swamped with my day to day work, and I pushed back on her gently to say, Listen, you work in innovation while you are on my payroll.

00:19:56:17 - 00:20:21:01
Unknown
I expect that you were spending three or 4 hours a week learning all of these tools, because if you can get to the point that you've automated or you've augmented 30, 40, 50% of your work with these tools, guess what? It will carve out free time for you to be creative and for you to develop this new learning pathway and for you to start pivoting your your career.

00:20:21:03 - 00:20:23:02
Unknown
And she looked at me stunned.

00:20:23:02 - 00:20:45:24
Unknown
It's not where she thought the conversation was was going. And then fast forward, it's been maybe two or so months. And today she is happily using a whole suite of the Jenny AI tools to make her day to day easier. And she is having so much fun because it's almost like having a colleague, a copilot.

00:20:46:05 - 00:21:04:09
Unknown
She's more productive and she's had more time to then invest in some of the cool AI projects that we're working on and to do some of the branding work that you want to do. So it's a win win for everyone, regardless of what level in the organization you're in. But there is a conscious shift

00:21:04:09 - 00:21:13:11
Unknown
required for the leaders and executives and board members today to think about what's the impact of AI on various job profiles.

00:21:13:13 - 00:21:34:18
Unknown
But then more broadly, what's the impact of the AI on various business processes? And then at the highest level, what does the impact of AI fundamentally mean for the business that you're operating in? And are you potentially at risk of, you know, fine tuning a business that in itself is actually going to be obsolete three years from now and you're not paying attention to this big existential risk

00:21:34:18 - 00:21:36:10
Unknown
And we see this happening quite a bit.

00:21:36:13 - 00:21:54:18
Unknown
Yes, absolutely. So what are some of the one of the top gen did A.I. tools you recommend folks think about like you told your your your colleague that work that works with you? What are some of the top things that helped her and what do you see as like some of the top three or four things that that that people need to look at?

00:21:54:20 - 00:22:13:10
Unknown
It could be in branding, marketing or processes. I'll let you just figure out which ones you think are the best to recommend. And I mean, there are countless of these cheat sheets that are circulating online that will help you figure out based on your based on your function and the type of role that you have, what are the tools you should be looking at?

00:22:13:14 - 00:22:33:19
Unknown
And you don't even have to venture that far. If you think about Canva, the tool that's widely used for creating a graphics, they've already integrated a number of Jenny AI features directly into Canva, so you don't have to leave the platform. Go to Photoshop, use one of the advanced photo editing tools and then come back into Canberra. You can do it right then and there.

00:22:33:19 - 00:22:58:16
Unknown
You just have to wrap your head around the the products app in the same way that I remember. I mean, even to this day, you open up somebody's resume and they'll have a line at the bottom that says, I'm skilled in PowerPoint and Excel and Microsoft Office. And I remember thinking this to myself in 2016 when I was reading some interviews for a position I had open technical role and thinking to myself,

00:22:58:16 - 00:23:00:15
Unknown
Why is it still on resumes?

00:23:00:18 - 00:23:18:18
Unknown
This is not a new skill if you don't know how to use Microsoft Office. I'm sorry, but you're not going to be qualified for reading at this point. It's almost like not being able to to read. And I was hiring for technical roles in the blockchain space and the rest. Okay, This is just bare, bare, bare, bare bones.

00:23:18:23 - 00:23:41:03
Unknown
In the future, Being able to use these AI assisted tools I think is going to replace those line items on the on the CV. And I mean, if you're an accountant or you're working in finance, you're going to be using a completely different set of tools than if you're a creative marketer that needs to generate entirely new images based on prompts.

00:23:41:03 - 00:23:58:00
Unknown
Broader than what are some of the goals? You sound like you have some cheap seats for some of these industries. Do you know where people might go to learn some tweets from like high level industries? Like where would you where would you point them to? Actually, if they come to my LinkedIn, I tend to repost pretty and this gives me a reminder.

00:23:58:00 - 00:24:11:11
Unknown
Maybe what I'll do is I'll just put together a collection of the most common ones that I tend to send to. So there too is you have a website, I know you have a website if you have a link there. That way people can go to your website, learn more about you if you want to give us a page there.

00:24:11:11 - 00:24:28:01
Unknown
That's also fun, We can put it in the podcast. Perfect. If you check out my personal website, Ileana, become a link there as well. Yeah, yeah. But I'll be like, Yeah, you got that JFK. I saw that. That's good. You got you. I got it. Now, three letters. I picked that up pretty slick. I mean, my last name is a double.

00:24:28:01 - 00:25:02:14
Unknown
Last name. It's or is Valiente. And if you want to hear something funny about names. Sure. I recently discovered only a couple of months ago that if you take the Latin origin of my last name and translate into English, or as Diante translates into they who have a brave mouth that is you, which considering how much talking I do and public speaking and presenting and evangelizing, it's actually so fitting because that's actually they just they did not.

00:25:02:16 - 00:25:21:10
Unknown
And again, like that's like that's even makes it more like meant to be it goes while it gets crazier. Okay can you believe this? Let's hear it. Okay. So the serendipity in life is hilarious. I was in Greece earlier this the summer for for a month in Europe, traveling with my niece

00:25:21:10 - 00:25:27:10
Unknown
and while in Greece, every time I introduced myself to a local person, they'd say, Ah, Ileana, that's a Greek name.

00:25:27:11 - 00:25:49:10
Unknown
Okay, maybe it's definitely not Russian. And I don't think it's Cuban either. That's my, my, my ethnic background mix. And so finally, background. Go ahead. And so finally I sat down and I started to do some research. And sure enough, the origin of the name Ileana is in fact Greek. And it means bright or a ray of sunshine.

00:25:49:17 - 00:26:13:05
Unknown
look. that's such a sweet first first name. But that's not why I'm telling you the story. I'm telling you a story because a couple of weeks ago, I was in New York at a dinner party, and I was mentioning to someone that I had an AI powered digital human twin of myself being being built. Her name is Lila, and we can dive into that later.

00:26:13:11 - 00:26:40:16
Unknown
And and the woman I was chatting to says, Lila, that's a really beautiful name. Did you know that in Hebrew it means night? I said, no, I had no idea. And so I go home, I do some research, and sure enough, it means of the night, I think. fascinating the opposites of Ileana and Lila and the AI and the real human version.

00:26:40:18 - 00:27:18:00
Unknown
I just thought that this was all very uncanny. And your eye digital twin is is the dark version of you. The, you know, slightly, slightly more muted version not flying next to to the sun balance. so so tell us about this digital digital powered self. What is this about? So it's really this idea that in the future, I think it's really reasonable to expect that people are going to have AI extensions of themselves not to replace the human, but to really augment the human.

00:27:18:06 - 00:27:37:10
Unknown
And so I've jumped in with both feet, given that I work in innovation. And I think it's super important for me as a business leader to set the intention and to show that we're we're leading the way. And so I have this AI human twin that's being developed and she's been trained on

00:27:37:10 - 00:28:02:21
Unknown
my voice. So I've spent probably 6 hours or so in various podcast studios recording cheerful sounding voice, my neutral voice, my sad voice, so that she can learn the various intonations she is being trained on various pieces of thought leadership that I've published in the past and other materials that are interesting around the future of work, the future of of travel and

00:28:02:21 - 00:28:27:09
Unknown
other industries that I have experience. And and then the idea is that you'll be able to talk to her in the same way that you're talking to, to me. And you can ask her a question and she'll respond. And she's digital, but she looks like me. I've submitted 3D body scans of myself all sorts of really awkward closeup photos, including of my teeth, you know, because your teeth hold up there the rest of your face.

00:28:27:11 - 00:28:49:19
Unknown
There has been a character designer drawing out my hair so that, you know, when I move, my hair moves. And she has an element of that and and gestures. And then in the future, you'll walk into one of our offices and next to the reception desk there may be a 3-D display and out, pops out Leila to say Hi, welcome to our office.

00:28:49:19 - 00:29:03:10
Unknown
I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have and, and, you know, be that front line of communication and then pull me in when you need the real Ileana to in for a much harder, more complex conversation.

00:29:03:10 - 00:29:10:10
Unknown
That is really cool. I would love to be able to do that too. So I've talked to customers. That just sounds so fascinating to me.

00:29:10:12 - 00:29:39:14
Unknown
It also makes me think of Michael Jackson and just wait. I got I got to talk about, okay, here it comes. Like his family, which I would not have done, sold away his rights for like $1,000,000,000, which sounds like a lot, but something I've always thought, is that what they're going to do if they're smart and they are, because they're multinational corporations, I think a Sony that owns that owns now the rights, they're going to do exactly what you're saying to do, actually immersive shows with Michael Jackson, to recreate everything.

00:29:39:16 - 00:30:00:18
Unknown
And I would still show up to that, show the chance to see him. And can you imagine what that would be like when that happens? And I really want to be a part of doing something like that. That's that's why I'm saying that. So manifesting that in the universe that maybe we'll do it together. Somebody will. I've always wanted to be a part of that legacy because I just think it's such a shame that a lot of this generation denied the chance to experience like that.

00:30:00:18 - 00:30:29:13
Unknown
The magic of what he did and how he transformed entertainment, music, performing like no one ever has since I'm saying all that to say, like I see that being applied to entertainment. That's the space that we're looking to get into. It would disrupt, right? In terms of really helping brands gamify the loyalty experience. And I just see that being the future As you as you describe how you said that, I also see it that, you know, maybe your, you know, your dating buddy kids or, whatever, you're not going to have kids.

00:30:29:13 - 00:31:01:05
Unknown
Fine. Your nieces and nephews when you are not here anymore. They can also ask questions to you to Leila, about who you were and learn about you. So I find it very fascinating for a lot of points of view. Certainly a ton to navigate from an ethical standpoint, which is hugely important. And every project that we do at Accenture with our clients has that ethics baked into it from the from the earliest outside.

00:31:01:07 - 00:31:05:02
Unknown
But I think the point that you're raising around resurrecting

00:31:05:02 - 00:31:29:02
Unknown
people who are no longer physically alive is definitely going to be a trend. And I think it may be at the core or one of the topics at the core of the labor dispute with all the entertainment studios right now. Right. And what happens if you were to displace a current actor that's still alive because you're resurrecting someone else who has the thing star power.

00:31:29:02 - 00:31:35:19
Unknown
And when you make a film with them, people will show will show up. So lots of thorny issues that need to be navigated.

00:31:35:19 - 00:31:47:24
Unknown
I don't know. There's going to be a lot and I think that's that's you know, I can say my piece very, very, very plainly. And I know you have you advised many people, but I think that's extremely important.

00:31:48:01 - 00:32:09:08
Unknown
And I don't think industry will do that unless they have reason to do it. That's why policy is so important. That's why unions are important because generally they were they weren't going to do it. I mean, capital generally figures out the most efficient way to make capital and considers everything else afterwards. Although they say it's ethics generally it's going to be the fastest to make profit and we'll figure out the ethics later.

00:32:09:10 - 00:32:41:20
Unknown
And I do think that's the biggest risk with AI for a lot of reasons, right? I think there's a risk for the reasons you just stated. We just stated. I think it's a risk that could end up building more mistrust because there's already some mistrust. Right. And if these things happen and we and we and we and we do things that are just using AI for expedient purposes and not considering the ethics and how we should build it, I think it can cause a lot of backlash very quickly and cause a lot of chaos, if you will.

00:32:41:22 - 00:33:09:13
Unknown
And the problem won't be the technology. The problem will be people and managing governments and institutions, because the backlash will be, I think, greater than people think. If there's a lot of mistrust. That's my perspective. I don't know how you feel about that. Technology is very rarely the problem. In fact, it's most of the time the challenge with perception humans and the view of is this trustworthy, is this not trustworthy?

00:33:09:15 - 00:33:19:14
Unknown
And the World Economic Forum published a really great report a couple of months ago outlining the various dimensions of trust that are required

00:33:19:14 - 00:33:36:13
Unknown
in the general population around adoption of AI. And it includes things at the fairly obvious when you think about them, but things like transparency and communication and even the disclosure. Are you interacting with an AI powered version of me or are you interacting with me?

00:33:36:19 - 00:33:53:08
Unknown
It's important for you to know that from the outside. Otherwise it's not a pleasant surprise that would reduce the overall trust framework. And it's the reason that we are so intentional with every project. We do what Accenture, to make sure those ethics are there. Because

00:33:53:08 - 00:33:58:08
Unknown
once you lose that trust, you cannot gain it back easily. Yeah, I mean, ask Facebook, right?

00:33:58:08 - 00:34:21:04
Unknown
So it's it's it's still working to gain that trust back and they've made a lot of smart moves. But overall, because of 2016 and many other things, they still were like working to regain trust. I will say that I need to connect you with a man named Harvey Urbina, who actually does. He actually is a post-doc at MIT, and he came out of the University of Cincinnati.

00:34:21:04 - 00:34:46:06
Unknown
And also I connect you with Dr. Cohen, who's been a leader, leading researcher within the last 30 years with explainable AI Transparent AI and is his student who's now a postdoc at MIT. He has has a whole startup around broad transparency and been able to take the black box that mostly as they are because we don't know the model of GPP in terms of how it actually makes decisions, right?

00:34:46:06 - 00:35:00:21
Unknown
We don't from my understanding. We don't we don't we don't have that. And so I think it's very important for the reasons you just stated, for transparency, but remind me to make that connection for you, because I think those are both of those folks are opportunities before you act. And then, you know, maybe we'll get you down to Cincinnati.

00:35:00:24 - 00:35:28:06
Unknown
I'm still working there making it happen. We also just, you know, just, you see, created a new building, 180,000 square foot digital futurist that is dedicated to A.I. and blockchain and many things in the future, things you deeply care about. So with that, think about the trustworthiness with AI and blockchain. How do you see the two, if at all, being able to complement each other?

00:35:28:08 - 00:35:36:19
Unknown
I have thoughts, but I'd love to get your thoughts because you've been deep in the blockchain industry much longer than me. So I think the easiest way to think of it is

00:35:36:19 - 00:35:46:15
Unknown
with blockchain and the Metaverse suite of technologies, more really what's at the core of it is we're redefining what it means to be present somewhere.

00:35:46:17 - 00:36:15:08
Unknown
And there is a blurred line between the physical world that we live in today, the purely digital world and everything in between and the various dimensions of it. So from that regard, I've heard a couple of people say like, is Metaverse said, it is absolutely not. And when you look at the advancements, not just in the headsets because there's often this misconception that everything metaverse is always in in the headset, but it's also the augmented reality stuff on your phone.

00:36:15:08 - 00:36:52:08
Unknown
It's the 3D displays. We have a looking glass here in the in the office. Not not far from here, which is fantastic. You don't need any hardware in order to interact, in order to interact with it. So what the metaverse is going to provide is a sense of place that is a persistent location that you can pop in and pop out of what a lot of the blockchain crypto tech is going to enable is a payments layer that is native digitally and that supports all types of transactions that can happen in those virtual or physical or everything in between type spaces.

00:36:52:14 - 00:37:05:05
Unknown
And then I will just be applied across the stack so you can be in a virtual world interacting with an AI powered agent. As as an example, let me bring this to life.

00:37:05:05 - 00:37:22:10
Unknown
We have built at Accenture, a product called Avenues. And Avenues is a virtual reality training simulation for social workers to get them trained on managing really difficult situations.

00:37:22:12 - 00:37:43:15
Unknown
Example You're a social worker and you need to go into someone's home and decide whether that home is a safe environment for a child to stay in or if that child needs to be pulled out and put into foster care. That is not a decision that you can make lightly. And how do you train a social worker for that kind of a complex scenario?

00:37:43:17 - 00:38:12:03
Unknown
Well, virtual reality training is one of the best ways to train for it because the simulation is so immersive. When I think back to my first time doing that training, I get goosebumps. It's so, so powerful. You feel like you're there, you hear the background noise and it's a psychologically safe place to to learn because. You're essentially role playing the questions that you can ask.

00:38:12:03 - 00:38:20:23
Unknown
And based on how the characters are responding, it's almost taking you down a tree, a Merkle tree, root graph of what other possible outcomes might be.

00:38:20:23 - 00:38:40:07
Unknown
Now imagine layering that kind of immersive virtual reality training with an AI component so that the script that I'm experiencing as I interact with this character is dynamic and it's evolving based on my level of shown empathy and understanding of the complexity.

00:38:40:09 - 00:39:06:20
Unknown
And my training scenario looks different from your training scenario, and it's bespoke and customized for what you need in that moment versus what I need in that. In that moment, I can see that. Yes, I can see that right. I can see that. I can see that playing out. I mean, that's how I see it being applied to immersive experiences and, you know, doing things with with brands, because brands spend all brands spend a lot of money on events and things like that.

00:39:06:20 - 00:39:22:20
Unknown
But don't really have tried to connect how their customers do things at these events. So you can do things like that with digital ownership. That's kind of where I see the future with what we're going to do. And then you can use AI to customize the experience to the consumer as you know, know more and more about them.

00:39:22:20 - 00:39:43:21
Unknown
Right? So it's I agree with you. I think people that are saying in Etsy's Web3 is that just is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the technology is going to integrate into all of our experiences is kind of like how GPS combined with the phone like they are they they come together as components to create new experiences for us to enhance what we already have.

00:39:43:21 - 00:39:57:20
Unknown
So I completely spent a few years ago, I was on a stage and I said, five years from now I do not want to be on the stage talking about blockchain. If I'm still on the stage talking about blockchain, we have failed as an industry.

00:39:57:20 - 00:40:08:12
Unknown
That five year prediction mark has come, it has gone and I still get invited to speak just about blockchain at blockchain only conferences, and I really fundamentally think there were missing the boat.

00:40:08:14 - 00:40:34:12
Unknown
And the boat in this scenario is at the end of the day, the average consumer does not care what technology they are using, nor should they care about the tech they're using. What needs to be primary is the use case. What's the value that they are getting? How are they interacting with the tech? The ideal way to give somebody an NFT is for them to not even know that they have an NFT.

00:40:34:18 - 00:40:59:10
Unknown
If you look at what Starbucks is doing with their Odyssey Loyalty program, the average person receiving it has no idea that it's there in the future. When you work for a company and you receive a training credential because you did a learning module or to show that you were in fact working there, it will set in a wallet that you that you own as a credential to prove that you have this history.

00:40:59:13 - 00:41:17:16
Unknown
You may not even know that it's called an NFT at that point in time. No one's going to know. And like I think this is get rid of the term, it's over. Like in terms of in its media, the technology is in just the terminology is the technology is correct. I was going to write that down. All right.

00:41:17:18 - 00:41:40:14
Unknown
Digital nomad like its you speak a lot about that, too, in terms of staying in the future work currently. Now, I had this debate with my father he's he's he's saying like look, people have to be in the office in order to really collaborate and get great ideas together. What is your thought in terms of the future of work when it comes to where we work and how we work?

00:41:40:16 - 00:41:42:21
Unknown
The future of work depends on the individual

00:41:42:21 - 00:42:02:10
Unknown
and it depends on what that individual really needs to get out. And it's also job and function specific. I'll give you an example at across some of my teams, I've issued a blanket statement that says, Listen, I'm not forcing you into the office. If you want to come to the office every day, go ahead.

00:42:02:12 - 00:42:24:18
Unknown
If you never want to come into the office, also go right ahead. Unless we're having a full team meeting, a Strategy day, there's a client working session and the clients in the office. And of course, logic would dictate you need to be in the office. But I've hired really smart people and it's my leadership philosophy to get out of their way, to let them do what they do do best.

00:42:24:18 - 00:42:56:06
Unknown
They don't need that babysitting. And in fact, the more autonomy you give people over their work, generally, that tends to correlate to a much higher work satisfaction type type level. Now is it important to get together in person and have the face time and to do those collaborative sessions? Absolutely. But when you truly think about a job and when you deconstruct all of the activities that need to happen in the course of a day, not all of those activities lend themselves well to having people in.

00:42:56:12 - 00:43:21:19
Unknown
So I tend to use this philosophy of you have to earn the commute of the people that you work with. And leadership is not about putting out a mandate and dictating what people do. It's about that reciprocal relationship between you and the people on the team and their willingness essentially to follow your your lead. These are not dictatorship type type moments.

00:43:21:21 - 00:43:35:10
Unknown
So that's my philosophy on general return to to work. And I feel that many of the blanket force in office mandates are missing the subtle nuance that's that's involved.

00:43:35:10 - 00:43:50:07
Unknown
But this philosophy in my mind goes a lot further. And so I've actually been working on a new theory that is called the potted plant theory. But plant theory is correct.

00:43:50:11 - 00:44:15:03
Unknown
And it's really this idea that you can place humans on a spectrum where on one side of the spectrum you have sequoias, picture the large trees, they're beautiful, majestic, they have centuries of secrets that they that they keep and extensive root networks. You cannot transplant a sequoia tree if your life depended on it. It doesn't want to be transplanted.

00:44:15:03 - 00:44:20:03
Unknown
It's not physically possible. But then you move along the spectrum to a slightly smaller tree.

00:44:20:03 - 00:44:40:02
Unknown
A red maple tree is a good example. You can't transplant a red maple tree once, twice, maybe three times in its life with the help of an arborist. And if all the conditions are met and that tree can thrive in its new environment, you move further along the and you end up in potted plant territory.

00:44:40:04 - 00:45:01:12
Unknown
That's actually where I sit. And as a potted plant, your roots are with you wherever you go. And so you tend to feel at home everywhere, and you can move a potted plant room to room, city to city, country to country, and they're probably fine. And then the farthest end of that spectrum are sequoia trees. That's right. Air plants and air plants.

00:45:01:12 - 00:45:34:01
Unknown
If you walked into a flower shop, you've seen them. They're usually hanging in a small glass jar. They don't have large, complex roots. They don't need a ton of water or soil and moisture from the environment is enough and they thrive with that. So humans are akin to two plants in in a way. And if you map them on a two by two matrix, where on the one side you have the need for certainty and on the other side of the spectrum you have the need for novelty.

00:45:34:03 - 00:46:07:09
Unknown
An air plant tends to fall higher on the need for novelty than a sequoia, which is very high on the certainty dimension. And the other dimension is the number of resources required in order for that individual to feel settled, secure, established and to thrive. An air plant has a very low resource requirements, little air, lots of humidity, very little water, very little soil, no need for traditional fertilizer, whereas a sequoia tree has really high resource requirements.

00:46:07:15 - 00:46:27:18
Unknown
And so as an individual, every person has a human plant archetype depending on where they fall on that spectrum. And that informs how you feel about your workplace, not just the physical environment that you're going into, but also the type of work environment that you that you thrive in

00:46:27:18 - 00:46:36:05
Unknown
your personal relationships and just in general, how much stimulation you need in order to really feel you are the you're excelling.

00:46:36:10 - 00:46:57:06
Unknown
So I think that's another overlay too, to add to this whole debate. That's great. So what you're saying is that there is a Sequoia and I'm an air plant, so it's very possible. But also the world is mostly designed for sequoias, the world as we know it. Absolutely. And that's why we're disruptors, That's why we're on disruptors, We're on the faculty.

00:46:57:12 - 00:47:25:09
Unknown
There are probably lots of people that fall elsewhere in the spectrum, but if all they've ever seen role model is a Sequoia, then they're living a trapped potted plant life or a trapped air plant life. And I don't think that makes for a very happy existence. So if people could better understand themselves, their archetypes make decisions to live life in accordance to who they really are, and employers could better understand the archetypes of teammates that they have.

00:47:25:11 - 00:47:51:21
Unknown
I think it would go a long way to customizing and individualizing the employee journey and considering how much of our days we spend at work, that's super important. We think about personalizing the consumer journey as the buyer and personalization is massive and that's what every retailer is thinking about. But why don't we apply that same rationale to our most valuable resource of an organization, which is our employee base?

00:47:51:23 - 00:48:27:14
Unknown
That might be the most comprehensive metaphor I've ever heard for Digital Nomad in the future. Where it goes, That's really good. That's really good. That's yeah, you step. I could see a whole book being developed on that. That's that, that's going to be excellent. So I can't wait to actually read that. I'll be. Well, it's funny that you mention book because I've been in discussions to do a research collaboration to look at the neuroscience, to understand what is the brain composition and chemical levels different in potted plants versus air plants versus sequoia trees.

00:48:27:20 - 00:48:50:13
Unknown
So it's not a lifestyle choice necessarily in and of its own, but it's also a fundamental wiring. And so there are some hypotheses that we're we're testing. And I encourage people to check out the website that's just launching potted plant theory dot com and sign up for early preview of materials and early preview of the book that's being worked on.

00:48:50:15 - 00:49:17:04
Unknown
All right. Let's get a couple of quick round robin questions here towards the end. A little bit about you. So a time you have failed in that you know very quickly that that that that made you better or time you had a setback and made you better. I'll talk about burnout for me. I hit a wall from honestly working too hard and completely neglecting.

00:49:17:11 - 00:49:40:11
Unknown
yeah, two years ago I could see that. Yes, it was very unpleasant. I mean, you know how a computer prompts you to restart every once in a while and you have the option of ignoring the notification. I did that. I did that. I did that until finally just fully shut down. And I remember getting off of a phone call with somebody and realizing after I hung up, I don't know who I just talked to and I don't know what we talked about.

00:49:40:15 - 00:49:44:16
Unknown
And I had meeting notes, but I couldn't read them because my eyes were going cross-eyed.

00:49:44:16 - 00:49:56:02
Unknown
So that was the starkest reminder I needed of, Hey, I'm actually not a robot, I'm human, I have limitations and I need to honor those.

00:49:56:02 - 00:50:15:08
Unknown
there's a lot of content out there that says like, well, when you're working towards getting where you want to, you can't have balance. I don't agree with that. I think is depends on how you define balance. I think it's always being mindful of where you are and making sure you're taking care of yourself, because if you don't have balance, you don't have anything like if you if you end up getting sick and dying.

00:50:15:08 - 00:50:39:05
Unknown
But you know, hell, you made $2 million. If you're not going, that's not going to be something you're going to be proud of. Like, that's how I think. I mean, you're going to want to experience life. So it's I'm glad you saw that. And there are limits and you are amazing. But you do have limits. I actually considered getting a tattoo on my wrist that would act as a reminder that I'm not a robot or a machine.

00:50:39:05 - 00:50:47:16
Unknown
You know, I'm only human and it's okay to breathe. And it's encouraged to do mindfulness exercises and, you know, actually live life

00:50:47:16 - 00:50:59:11
Unknown
in the in the process. So it's really shifted my management style, my leadership philosophy, my personal outlook. So a lot to learn from the burnout. I don't recommend anyone has to get all the way to that brink of a wall.

00:50:59:15 - 00:51:00:23
Unknown
It's really unpleasant.

00:51:00:23 - 00:51:13:23
Unknown
Yeah, I so like a lot of us ended up getting there though but it's it's it happens. What advice would you give your younger self and what would you ignore?

00:51:14:00 - 00:51:26:11
Unknown
What I would ignore is always trying to please everyone because you can't. And by definition, when you're working on something that's new, when you're working on something that's disruptive,

00:51:26:11 - 00:51:38:02
Unknown
you have to speak up and you're usually challenging the status quo. And that flies in the face of what women especially are often conditioned to do from an early age.

00:51:38:04 - 00:51:59:16
Unknown
I was having this conversation with my 15 year old niece while touring her through through Europe this summer. Listen. We expect little girls to be docile and obedient and calm and follow instructions. But then we want young women that speak up and that are bold and that are brave, you know? Well, one way of conditioning does not lead to the other.

00:51:59:21 - 00:52:10:00
Unknown
So at one point in our journey, we have to start normalizing that. We want the creative thought and to get comfortable with the discourse, the discomfort.

00:52:10:00 - 00:52:21:16
Unknown
So that's something I wish I had learned probably even earlier on. It would have saved me a lot of the the back and forth. no. But if I say this, I'm really going to offend X, Y, Z cohort.

00:52:21:17 - 00:52:25:03
Unknown
There's no there's no winning. And if you're going to push a boundary,

00:52:25:03 - 00:52:39:21
Unknown
you're inevitably going to make people feel uncomfortable in the process. You can do your best. And I tried to do my best to hold people's hands and say, Listen, we got you will lead you into that future state. But without the discomfort, there can be no growth.

00:52:39:21 - 00:52:44:05
Unknown
But the world is going to change around you. Whether you like it or not. You don't really have the option.

00:52:44:05 - 00:53:00:16
Unknown
Yeah, that's great. Okay, so you have a slogan that the theme of your life. What is that slogan? Why? Let's build a world that humans actually want to to live in. Yeah, I think you explained why that's important.

00:53:00:16 - 00:53:25:19
Unknown
We've got to talk about that. All right. You've got a committee of three to advise you on life's business. Who are these three people and why? My guess is your day is going to be one. Go ahead, Mike. No, no. I mean, my parents are a fantastic influence on me in terms of pressure. Well, no, no, no. But in terms of I grew up in multiple countries moving around regularly as a child.

00:53:25:19 - 00:53:50:07
Unknown
I've lost track of how many schools I've I've gone to. And what that has taught me is the value of resiliency and adaptability. So it doesn't matter if you were to plop me to Mars tomorrow, I would probably be just fine. And so in that regard, I have the utmost respect for for them. And a lot of the the lessons I learned early, early on.

00:53:50:10 - 00:54:15:08
Unknown
So I think to round out my advisory panel, one is a mentor of mine who has written a number of books, has spoken on some of the world's largest stages. And he's really interesting because he's really carved out life and living it on his own terms and looking at strengths and weaknesses and how he can really anchor there.

00:54:15:14 - 00:54:45:09
Unknown
So that's something I definitely, definitely respect. And some of the other folks that I tend to admire include the Obamas and the amount of grace that they exhibit when under pressure is a lot. I think of Michelle Obama's quote regularly when they go low, we go high. And I think that that's a mantra I try to live by every single day.

00:54:45:09 - 00:55:08:20
Unknown
And so I'm really grateful for the two of them as as role models. And I don't know if there is a specific other pillar or person but I find I learn from everyone I meet. And somebody asked me the other day, they're like, How many people do you think you've met in the past year? Now, look, I don't know, maybe a thousand, maybe 1500, and this person nearly fell off their chair.

00:55:08:22 - 00:55:09:09
Unknown
Look,

00:55:09:09 - 00:55:31:11
Unknown
that's a lot of people. well, I mean, when you add in a dinner party here, a dinner party there or conference, they're introductions to these people over here, a work related meeting. It quickly adds up. And so I find them constantly learning from all of these interactions. You never know where the next tidbit of inspiration and insight will come from.

00:55:31:13 - 00:55:39:21
Unknown
Yeah. All right. Final question. This is a hard one, but what's an important truth you have that many people disagree with you on,

00:55:39:21 - 00:56:03:02
Unknown
Let's talk about mental health for a moment. And it's this realization that there's not much that separates someone who has really had a hard time in their life and ends up, let's say, on the street and ends up homeless versus someone that on the surface appears to have everything together.

00:56:03:04 - 00:56:29:07
Unknown
I have seen personally firsthand what someone who's close to me on the brink of a lot of mental health challenges where I could absolutely see how if we don't have enough of a strong social safety net, how people can fall through the cracks, through really no fault of their of their own, because we do not treat mental health in the same way that we treat a physical ailment.

00:56:29:12 - 00:56:32:17
Unknown
And because they tend to be invisible,

00:56:32:17 - 00:57:04:17
Unknown
I think that there's just a lot of human potential that ends up being lost as a result of it not receiving the attention that it deserves. And culturally, there are certain parts of the world where there is no concept of mental health. It's the grin and bear type of mentality, and I've just seen it really close up too, to recognize that, you know, it's a sliding scale and you need some level of systematic support structure so people don't end up relying entirely on their own.

00:57:04:19 - 00:57:24:08
Unknown
We are a very social species. We're not meant to be in isolation and solving everything entirely on our own. Our is A.I.. I appreciate you coming on disruption. Now this is going to be a great show. We're definitely going to have a lot to talk about to dissect on this. So I'm so looking forward to it. So thank you so much for coming on.

00:57:24:10 - 00:57:26:16
Unknown
Thank so much for having me. This is a delight.