How to get your org on board with your GenAI product strategy - Karen Beck Stroup (Chief Digital Officer, WEX)
Feb 5, 2025
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Karen Beck Stroup, Chief Digital Officer at WEX, shares her wisdom on building effective AI strategies. She emphasizes the importance of aligning AI initiatives with board objectives and engaging employees in the transformation. The discussion covers setting bold goals, fostering a culture of innovation, and implementing robust AI governance in financial services. Stroup highlights how Generative AI can transform product development by streamlining tasks and enhancing customer interactions, urging organizations to embrace creativity and measure outcomes for success.
Successful AI strategies require strong board alignment and continuous engagement to foster innovative thinking and set bold goals.
Educating employees about generative AI fosters a supportive culture, empowering them to leverage technology to enhance productivity and workplace dynamics.
Deep dives
The Role of AI in Business Transformation
AI has emerged as a pivotal element in business transformation, moving beyond mere technology to a fundamental shift in customer experience and operations. The CEO of WEX identified AI as a customer-led transformation, emphasizing that product management needs to begin with understanding customer problems and considering AI as a means to innovate solutions. This perspective showcases the belief that the shift catalyzed by AI is not only about employing new technologies but rethinking how businesses operate, enhancing their ability to meet customer needs. The focus on AI necessitates a collaborative approach across departments to ensure alignment and effective implementation.
Experimentation as a Path to Innovation
Early in the AI strategy, the goal was to embrace experimentation, with an initial target of conducting 12 projects within a year, which quickly expanded to 60. This exploratory mindset fostered a culture of learning and adaptation, allowing teams to identify high-impact areas where AI could solve longstanding challenges. The following year was slated for scaling successful initiatives, with bold objectives to enhance productivity and reimagine customer experiences through AI. This iterative process highlights how organizations must remain flexible and responsive to capitalize on the vast potential of AI.
Building Engagement and Education Around AI
To counter the intimidation often associated with AI, the focus was placed on educating and engaging employees to embrace AI as a beneficial tool, rather than a threat to their jobs. Sessions were organized to guide employees through practical applications of generative AI, resulting in increased understanding and enthusiastic adoption within the workforce. This approach has fostered a supportive culture where employees at all levels feel empowered to leverage AI to enhance their productivity and the quality of their work. As a result, a significant majority of employees now regularly utilize generative AI tools, transforming workplace dynamics and expectations.
Strategic Board Engagement and Long-term Vision
Maintaining strategic alignment with the board has been crucial in enhancing organizational focus on AI initiatives, with regular updates and external insights fueling engagement. Board members have encouraged an ambitious approach, prompting the company to set bold, aspirational goals that push beyond conventional limits while fostering an environment for innovative thinking. This ongoing dialogue has nurtured an understanding that the value of AI extends beyond immediate implementation, focusing on capturing long-term benefits and adapting business practices to thrive in a tech-driven future. As the company navigates through experimentation and learning phases, it continuously shifts towards a focus on value realization for sustained growth.
In this conversation, Karen Stroup, Chief Digital Officer at Wex, discusses her experiences with building an AI strategy at WEX, highlighting the importance of board alignment, experimentation, and employee engagement. She shares insights on setting bold goals, creating a culture of innovation, and the necessity of a robust AI governance framework, particularly in the financial services sector.
Featured Links: Follow Karen on LinkedIn | WEX | 'The decisive role of AI-powered analytics in your product strategy'feature at Mind The Product
Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.
Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.
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