‘I’m showing how AI can make its mark – as clearly as making tracks in snow.’

I spend most of my time outside work with my family, am active with my local church, and also run, cycle and ski. In fact, I trained as a ski instructor just after finishing my PhD, and have worked intermittently as one throughout my IT career.

My PhD was Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Cognitive Science. That was followed by working in several post-doctoral research positions in the UK, Europe and USA. I’ve held data science roles at a couple of AI start-ups, a consultancy and in various freelance positions.

Since joining GFT in early 2023, I’ve been able to apply that over-20-years’ experience and deep technical knowledge of NLP and AI to client problems. That’s been done across project life cycles – from the initial ideation workshops with senior stakeholders, through the design and development of their solutions, and then all the way to the machine learning operations (MLOps) and infrastructure aspects of putting their AI solutions into production.

Through this, and collaborating with GFT’s Head of AI, we’ve now developed a systematic process for AI use case identification and prioritisation. This helps ensure that the work we do with clients is always focused on solving real business problems. Crucially, it flags up irrelevant use cases.

Our methodology has now been used in the UK – on everything from start-ups to banks – and shared internationally across GFT. It’s great to be able to show clients that we have a proven, systematic and value-led approach.

Also, just as we explain AI to clients, we’re also up-skilling colleagues internally. I work closely with the learning and development team on creating new training materials and running sessions. We’ve also put recordings of training sessions that I’ve done in the UK and USA online – which include ChatGPT, generative AI and traditional AI approaches. The idea is that these talks can provide a strong context for the latest AI developments.

Whether it’s clients or colleagues, skiing or AI, I find real satisfaction in helping people navigate new terrain and discover what they’re capable of. Seeing them grow in confidence and insight is what makes this work so rewarding. Because at the end of the day, just like fresh tracks in snow, the best mark you can make is one that leads others forward.