On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Frank Mendoza, a revered figure in the realm of data analytics and AI strategy.
His contributions to Fortune 500 companies like Nike, Kelloggs, Keurig Dr Pepper, and Jim Beam as the founder of Catalytics have revolutionised the way these organisations leverage big data, artificial intelligence and advanced analysis.
Frank offers practical recommendations to implement AI, making this seemingly daunting technology accessible and actionable demystifies AI, shares his strategic insights, and helps us scout for growth in this exciting field.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Over the last 8 years I’ve worked with some really top brands to introduce analytics concepts like machine learning and chatbots. The hype has really got big in the last few months around what’s called generative AI, which is a little bit different from what we’ve historically called AI or machine learning, but in a nutshell it’s got people really excited and companies really want to take advantage and be able to demonstrate a competitive advantage to some of their competitors. It’s a really exciting time to be in this space.
• One of the challenges/constraints all companies face, large or small, is time. Big companies have the ability to throw money at it, small companies don’t have that luxury, but they really need to focus their attention. When I approach a company to talk about the potential of leveraging AI, I want to focus on where exactly they’re going to be using it and making sure there’s a direct tie to business value. There are so many tools that have been thrown out onto the market it’s caused a lot of analysis paralysis and businesses are struggling to figure out which tools they should use, where, why and who should be using them. You really need to have a strategic approach to how you’re leveraging these technologies to make sure you’re getting the biggest bang for the buck.
• Customers have given you the privilege of providing you with information about themselves that’s very important to them, but for you as well to grow your business. How you use that information, where you provide that information to models, all those things are very vital to ensure that you’re doing the things necessary to protect that information. OpenAI and Chat GPT have the ability to retrain on the questions that you’re asking – those are situations where you really want to provide guard rails/guidelines to your organisation about what you’re allowing them to put into there.
• Generative AI solutions have been trained on publicly available data, images, etc. Our society is moving  - I believe – in a positive direction, but it has not moved all the way to where it needs to move. The net result of that is that there is a lot of information out there that’s still filled with biases, hate, etc. You want to make sure that when you’re leveraging these tools that you take into account these biases and those inherent challenges with leveraging these models and ensuring that you have a level of human judgement in the loop.

BEST MOMENTS
‘We’re now shifting the paradigm from inventing with tools to tools inventing. There are things the tools are doing that are creating something that hasn’t existed before.’
‘One thing that no organisation can waste is resources and time.’
‘Every organisation is unique and the applications of AI are going to be unique to those as well.’
‘The ability for you to execute AI is predicated upon your quality of information. I encourage organisations to start looking at that and take advantage of “data enablement” to enable businesses to move forward. It’s a daunting task but you don’t want to boil the ocean, that’s where I help organisations understand where exactly they should put their focus, energy and effort.’

ABOUT THE GUEST
Frank Mendoza is a highly respected and award-winning analytics leader with over 20 years of experience in Strategy, Customer Experience and Data Science.
He is the founder of Catalytics, a service company that helps Fortune 500 companies like Nike, Kelloggs, Keurig Dr Pepper, and Jim Beam to execute actionable AI and Data Analytics strategies to solve their toughest business challenges.
Frank shares that 2023 is the year of AI and AI is becoming more prevalent in various industries. However, many companies are still intimidated or confused by its use and capabilities. Frank is there to help implement AI into any business and helps identify the best approaches to do so via practical recommendations as AI should be a tool that augments and empowers companies to grow and innovate.
Frank can be found here.
And you can also reach him at Catalytics

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. 

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Charitable: https://chrt.fm/track/D19185/