Wendy Turner-Williams: Ground rules for good AI governance
Executive insights on the rapidly evolving role of the CIO
As organizations rush to implement AI, CIOs are in the hot seat to deliver results. But before they get too far, they should ensure they’re not skipping over an important step: ensuring proper governance, data quality, and organizational alignment. This is only one of the pressures on the evolving role of the CIO in the age of AI.
Wendy Turner-Williams, who has navigated new-technology challenges since the early 2000s, from Microsoft to Tableau and now as CEO of TheAssociation.AI, offers a critical reality check to the AI conversation.
"Approximately 85% of data science initiatives never reach production," she notes. The culprit? Not technology limitations, but governance frameworks that fail to bridge technical and business stakeholders.
That's just one of the insights from our new four-part guide, “The AI-empowered CIO: What it takes to succeed in the age of AI.” In it, we've interviewed several forward-thinking leaders about the skills and mindsets needed to thrive in today's technology landscape.
For the full report, download it here. For a quick sense of Turner-Williams's unique perspective, here are a few of her key insights:
On the role of influence
“Influence has always been central to the job. If you think about data roles, a chief data or AI officer, we own nothing, but we're responsible for the DNA of the company, which is data. So it's a job about influence and helping others shine.”
On her AI roots
“I began working in the AI space in 2000 at one of the first telecom companies I worked at. We took paper maps of fiber lines and did a transformation to automate and align them to GPS, which was very new at the time. Then we built automation that allowed people in the field to use an AI copilot to track where potential fiber had been cut. That was my first AI introduction.”
On tech debt
“Most companies have so much tech and data debt, but have still not addressed it. Until they do that, they will not be successful with AI.”
Download “The AI-empowered CIO” guide, and watch Turner-Williams’s video below for more insight.
