Deep Ratna Srivastav is Chief AI Officer at Franklin Templeton Investments, where he leads the firm’s enterprise AI strategy with a sharp focus on ROI, full-scale transformation, and applied innovation. His career has been shaped by three guiding beliefs: relentless commercial focus, a conviction that digital, data, and AI must be grounded in domain expertise, and a commitment to staying ahead of the curve.
Deep began his professional journey at GE Capital, where he worked as a Six Sigma Black Belt in technology. He then moved into the start-up world, taking on business leadership responsibilities early in his career. In that role, he led a team of more than 1,000 employees, managed full P&L ownership, and played a key role in post-acquisition integration following the company’s acquisition by Oracle Financial Services.
He later joined Franklin Templeton as Head of Business Strategy for North America. Over time, he became increasingly convinced that data and AI would become central drivers of business performance. This led him to establish the firm’s global data analytics organization and later to lead Franklin Templeton’s digital capabilities, spanning research, productization, and go-to-market execution.
In 2022, ahead of the mainstream AI surge driven by ChatGPT, Deep championed the creation of an enterprise-wide AI function at Franklin Templeton. As Chief AI Officer, he continues to drive business value through advanced research, scalable execution, and commercially aligned AI leadership.
As a data and AI leader, which traits and skills do you think matter most, and which of those have been most influential for you in your current position?
“Creating a bifocal mindset is highly effective: exploit available technologies in the current business environment while exploring the full stack of capabilities for the long term. Only organizations that have both will be able to win in the new AI world.”
Reflecting on your career, what is one non-traditional piece of advice (outside of technical skills) you would give to an aspiring data or AI leader aiming for the C-suite?
“Understand the P&L of your company; understand the operating margin and analyze the growth drivers of the company. Once you see those clearly, the technology path will automatically emerge. C-Suite loves business acumen.”