Sathish Muthukrishnan, Chief Information, Data, and Digital Officer, Ally Financial

Describe your career to date

My career has been an exciting journey across many industries. I started as an engineer and worked my way through multiple verticals over 25 years spanning technology, transportation, manufacturing, e-commerce, and now financial services. From day one, my focus always has been on the customers, providing them with unique and personalized digital experiences that help them achieve their goals. With that in mind, my experience in enterprise digital transformation, specifically solving complex problems and building successful teams, has brought that vision to life. 

I am proud of the path I have taken. I have collaborated with wonderful people throughout my career who were motivated to do great work and take care of each other. All of them have played a part in my career trajectory and I am grateful for that. 

What role do you play in building and delivering conventional artificial intelligence solutions, including machine learning models? Are you also involved in your organization’s adoption of generative AI?  

As Chief Information, Data, and Digital Officer, I am highly involved in all aspects of Ally’s artificial intelligence (AI) strategy – both conventional AI and newer generative AI (genAI) opportunities. My role is that of an evangelist and my audience is wide. I regularly speak with the Board and Executive Committee about our strategy, updates on use case exploration and the value that the technology could bring to our employees and customers.  

With employees, my job is to encourage their curiosity and showcase how we believe AI can be assistive to them. In the community, I become one part teacher, one part advocate – it is important that we also think of the impact that AI may have on digital equity and fairness. I believe that if we do it right with AI, the possibilities are endless. 

How are you preparing your organization for AI adoption and change management? 

AI adoption has already occurred at Ally, due in part to our approach with change management. I firmly believe that bringing generative AI into an organization of this size requires an intentional focus on change management. For AI to make a positive impact, either from a productivity and efficiency standpoint or to the bottom line, the entire enterprise must come along for the journey.  

At Ally, awareness of our AI strategy and company-wide training are our building blocks for enterprise adoption. We also have an entire team within our data organization, that has AI change management as their remit. They host quarterly AI days for anyone at Ally to attend and learn from; we bring in speakers, do demos of our platforms, discuss ethical questions, and process. Everyone who wants to be involved can be, no matter what part of the company they work in. Ally teammates have embraced the possibilities of genAI. 

Sathish Muthukrishnan
has been included in:
  • No. 1 100 Brands 2024 (USA)

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