Claim OwnershipThe AI Consulting Podcast
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© Daniel Faggella, 2021
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The AI Consulting Podcast helps AI service providers, advisors, and consultants to find more AI opportunities, grow their companies, and deliver more value to clients.
Each week, Emerj founder Daniel Faggella interviews AI services and consulting leaders to discover how they started and grew their firm – and the AI skills and best practices that have allowed them to help their clients succeed.
Subscribe to Emerj’s weekly AI consulting newsletter by downloading our AI consulting PDF guide: http://emerj.com/k3
Each week, Emerj founder Daniel Faggella interviews AI services and consulting leaders to discover how they started and grew their firm – and the AI skills and best practices that have allowed them to help their clients succeed.
Subscribe to Emerj’s weekly AI consulting newsletter by downloading our AI consulting PDF guide: http://emerj.com/k3
42 Episodes
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In today’s episode, we speak with a founder who profitably grew by finding product-market fit early in a profitable niche. Our guest is Siva Pullabhotla, Co-Founder & CEO at Docskiff Inc. Docskiff focuses on contract intelligence in the procurement space. In this episode, Siva discusses the kinds of assumptions you should begin with if you’re looking to find a product-market fit fast. He also talks about pivoting based on your initial customer engagement to double down on success and use it to fuel your growth. As a past Catalyst member and current Emerj Plus member, we are grateful to have Siva in our community and here on the show. Join Emerj Plus at emerj.com/p1 to discover more AI use-cases, best practice guides, white papers, frameworks, and more.
This week’s guest is Rick Oppedisano. Rick is a member of our Emerj Plus community and the Founder and CEO of Delta Bravo, an AI consulting firm based in the United States. In this episode, he shares his founder’s story, highlighting what it looks like to meet a giant enterprise customer, like Rolls Royce, and how to build those kinds of enterprise relationships for the long term. He also discusses the types of hurdles you can expect to run into and how to overcome them as a small firm. If you’re interested in unlocking our AI best practice guides, frameworks for AI ROI, and specific resources for AI consultants, visit emerj.com/p1.
Our guest this week is Michael Zipursky, CEO and Founder at Consulting Success. Consulting Success is a firm dedicated to training consultants of various skill levels. Michael had previously run several consulting firms himself, and in this episode, he shares his insights on the best initial steps to get a consulting firm off the ground. He further discusses what to do first, how to determine what to sell, how to get feedback from the market, and how to go to market efficiently. If you’d like to learn how to get more involved in serving your clients with AI-related projects, be sure to download our PDF brief called “Beginning with AI - 3 Critical Insights for Non-Technical Leaders” at emerj.com/beg1.
This week’s guest is Christoph Hardt, Co-Founder and Managing Director of COMATCH. COMATCH is a platform matching consultants, mostly strategy consultants, to customers around the globe with their initial focus in the EU. The company now boasts over 100 employees and, through their success, has gained access to thousands of consultants and gained a sense of how smaller, independent consultancies are winning business. Christoph also shares his perspective on where artificial intelligence and data are making their way into the strategy consulting world. If you’re interested in unlocking our AI best practice guides, frameworks for AI ROI, and specific resources for AI consultants, visit emerj.com/p1.
This week’s guest is Michael Segala, CEO at SFL Scientific. SFL Scientific is a fast-growing AI consultancy in the Boston area with about 40 team members after six years of business. After receiving his Ph.D. from Brown University in 2013, Michael held several data science positions before founding SFL Scientific. Michael has interfaced with cutting-edge startups, S&P 100 companies, the U.S. Department of Defense, and others, and he brings that experience to bear in this episode. He also discusses how AI services firms can find a balance between education and delivery for their clients. If you’re interested in unlocking Emerj’s AI best practice guides, frameworks for AI ROI, and other resources for AI consultants, visit emerj.com/p1.
This week’s guest is Christopher Pavlak, a Specialist Master of AI Ethics at Deloitte. He is also a leader in AI ethics efforts with Deloitte at the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center at the DOD. Today, Chris speaks about the transition into AI consulting. Chris also talks about his own career experience and how he was able to frame his past experience in a way that enabled him to land a job in his field of interest and how Emerj Plus’s resources helped him get up to speed as he jumped into the world of consulting. If you have not already joined Emerj Plus, you can learn more about our tools and resources for AI leaders at emerj.com/p1.
This week’s guest is Roey Mechrez, the CTO of BeyondMinds, an AI firm based in London. Today he speaks about the origins of BeyondMinds and how the company got off the ground by doing unique and bespoke projects. Roey also discusses how he’s aiming to transition towards offering products in addition to their existing services. While Roey is not looking to transition BeyondMinds to a pure Saas firm, he seeks to create a core platform that will enable his team to make interactions with customers a bit more productized. Roey is also a valued member of our Emerj Plus and Slack communities. If you’re interested in our best practices and frameworks for AI ROI, AI strategy, and more, visit emerj.com/p1 to learn more.
Our guest this week is Christopher Pavlak, currently serving as a Specialist Master for AI Ethics and Governance at Deloitte. Today, Chris speaks with us as a consultant himself about what AI governance is at a practical level and how consultants and business leaders can think through AI governance as a framework to help them mold more successful AI adoption strategies. We’re also grateful to have Chris as an Emerj Plus member. If you are not already a member, Emerj Plus is our online platform home to our entire library of AI use-cases, whitepapers, best practices, and frameworks. If you’d like to learn more, be sure to visit emerj.com/p1.
This week’s guest is Joseph Suquet, a Partner, Board Member, and Executive Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Fligoo. Fligoo is an AI firm based in the Bay area with employees worldwide. Today, Joseph shares how Fligoo turned from primarily AI services to offering its own suite of products. He specifically discusses how to discover an AI product idea and turn it into an AI business model. This topic is frequently requested in our Emerj Plus community. Emerj Plus is our premium platform where members access all of our resources and tools as well as access to our private Slack community of service leaders around the world. To learn more, visit emerj.com/p1.
This week’s guest is Graham Holt, GM at Daitan. Founded in 2004, Daitan was recently acquired for an undisclosed amount after being ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in America by Financial Times. Today, Graham shares his insights on what it looks like to scale talent and processes, procedures, and departments. He also discusses how Daitan experimented with different models for services from their traditional IT and digital product business. If you’ve benefitted from the insights shared in this episode, consider supporting us by leaving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and let us know what episode you found most helpful or what you’d like to hear more about in the future.
Today’s guest is Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and Co-Founder of PolyAI. PolyAI is an AI voice company based in the United Kingdom. Nikola previously appeared on an episode with us to discuss the future of voice AI for the customer experience. Today, Nikola dives into the use-case of appointment-setting with AI for voice. He talks specifically about the technical constraints, AI capabilities, and how to create workflows that add real value to the business. This episode is sponsored by PolyAI. If you run a disruptive AI firm and you’re looking to reach a global audience of AI-interested leaders, be sure to visit emerj.com/ad1 to learn more about Emerj’s Creative Services.
This week’s guest is Roey Mecherez, CTO of BeyondMinds and Ph.D. from the Israeli Institute of Technology and Electrical Engineering. In this episode, Roey shares his business knowledge and experience at BeyondMinds, which has raised approximately $15M to date. Roey also discusses how to explain the technical nuances around preparing data, training algorithms, the iteration process, and more in a way that conveys complexity in non-technical terms. Roey is also a valued Emerj Plus member. Emerj Plus is our private platform where we share our AI best practice guides, frameworks for AI ROI, and other specific resources for AI consultants. If you’d like to learn more, visit emerj.com/p1.
This week’s guest is Vish Rajalingam, AI Solutions Architect at MulticoreWare, a 250-person AI services firm focused primarily on smart cities and autonomous vehicles. Vish also holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science, focusing on Artificial Intelligence from UT Arlington. Today, Vish shares his insights from his experience working on and understanding algorithms and interacting with clients and customers to set realistic expectations about measuring AI success and potential capabilities. To explore this episode’s topics more, visit emerj.com to read our popular AI best-practice guide, “Setting the Right AI Expectations – A Key for Turning Pilots into Deployments.”
Today’s guest is Sam Daish, Head of AI and Data Science at Qrious, a technology services firm based in New Zealand. Sam didn’t start his career in consulting and shares what it was like to learn today’s skills. Sam also discusses some considerations for AI fluency for mid-size firms and effective strategies for starting conversations that transform into real AI projects. We’re grateful to have Sam in the Emerj Plus community, where members gain access to our entire library of AI use-cases, AI whitepapers, frameworks, and best practice guides. If you’d like to take your AI fluency to the next level and deliver more value for your clients, be sure to visit emerj.com/p1.
Today’s guest is Joseph Suquet, Director of Strategy and Corporate Development, Partner, and Board Member at Fligoo, a 50-person AI Services firm that focuses on AI projects for companies such as Mastercard, Coca-Cola, and more. Today, Joseph speaks about some of the common misconceptions he sees in the enterprise world regarding AI strategy and how consultants can tactfully help clients achieve better results. Joseph also shares business lessons useful for consultants and business leaders on how to get building AI strategy right. To unlock access Emerj’s non-technical guide for getting started with AI deployment, check out emerj.com/beg1.
Today’s guest is Ash Fontana, Managing Director of Zetta Venture Partners, a firm based in San Francisco. Ash was also a previous guest on our AI in Business Podcast. Today, he gives his recommendations for companies looking to transition from being service-oriented with AI to becoming more product-oriented. Ash also shares some lessons from his experience investing in AI firms and insights from his recently published book, “The AI-First Company: How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence,” on what it takes to iterate and find a scalable business model. Download our whitepaper “Beginning with AI” to learn more about the practical steps for AI deployment at emerj.com/beg1.
Today’s guest is Bhaskar Roy, Client Partner of the APAC region and AI Consultant at Fractal Analytics. Bhaskar has previous experience working on analytics projects at Accenture and Target and now takes on both analytics and AI projects at Fractal Analytics. Today he shares how he thinks about the art and science behind transforming customers’ initial intentions into a first AI project that can turn into long-term business value. To learn about Emerj’s frameworks for AI readiness, ROI and strategy, visit Emerj Plus at emerj.com/p1.
Today’s guest is Graham Holt, GM of Digital Solutions at Daitan, a technology and data science services firm founded initially in Brazil. With over 500 employees, Daitan is listed by Financial Times as one of America’s fastest-growing. Today, Graham shares his perspective and business lessons about leveraging client referrals, and he details the principles that enabled Daitan’s quick and successful growth through referrals. He also talks specifically about how Daitan has developed the AI wing of their business and services. If you are interested in unlocking our AI best practice guides, our frameworks for AI ROI, and our specific guides and resources for AI consultants, check out Emerj Plus at emerj.com/p1.
Today’s guest is Cory Janssen, Co-founder & CEO of AltaML, a consulting firm based in Canada focusing on exciting machine learning projects across various industries from insurance to energy and more. Previously a successful entrepreneur, Cory started, grew, and sold a well-known media property called Investopedia. In today’s episode, Cory will discuss his unlikely path to creating a machine learning company, as well as some of his early struggles and the lessons that helped him grow his company in just five years. Cory is also a valued member of the Emerj plus online community for AI consultants and strategists. You, too, can join this community to gain access to material to boost your AI strategy and more by visiting Emerj Plus at emerj.com/p1 for more details.
Today’s guest is Xena Ugrinsky, the CTO and co-founder at Pilot Wave Holdings - a financial sponsor that helps businesses remain competitive in the technological age. Today Xena speaks to us about her experience of seeing the rise in Big Data a decade ago and how it is comparable now to the era of AI, especially learning from how service providers and clients both need to evolve. In addition, Xena will be discussing the transferable lessons from Big Data and applying them to the values of AI. So, if you are interested in implementing AI in your enterprise, then tune in and find out the key lessons to take from Big Data! Xena is also a valued Emerj Plus member, and so if you would like to get more information on AI frameworks, ROI strategies, and AI adoption, you can visit Emerj Plus at emerj.com/p1.
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