Hiring chief data, AI officers as AI moves at ‘such a fast clip’

Government agencies and other organizations are thinking outside of the box — and outside of the country — when acquiring or furnishing talent in data analytics and artificial intelligence.

“AI is innovating at such a fast clip that if we don’t ensure it is developed in an equitable manner, the wealth divide and racial homeownership gap will grow exponentially greater,” said Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Authority. “Part of the challenge was building a team that could help us innovate.”

It took her more than a year to find one person to lead such a team, and “I couldn’t find him in the U.S., quite frankly,” said Rice. The NFHA’s chief responsible AI officer, Michael Akinwumi, is from Canada.

These comments were made at the 2024 Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Financial Stability on June 6 and 7, hosted jointly by the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Speakers from other agencies and companies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and JPMorgan Chase, touted their efforts to collaborate across divisions, pool hiring efforts, and start new technology functions or positions from scratch.

The challenge of finding employees with the right backgrounds came up with other panelists.

Dominic Delmolino, vice president of worldwide public sector technology and innovation at Amazon Web Services, said AWS makes AI training available across its base so employees can gain basic knowledge on the subject. But finding people who can grapple with the potential for bias in data and who can supervise models after they have been deployed is another matter.

Until recently, “there was no undergraduate degree in data science in the U.S.,” said Delmolino. 

When Ted Kaouk, now chief data and AI officer at the CFTC, was employed at the Office of Personnel Management, he saw significant year over year increases since 2020 in hiring related to data science and AI across government agencies. 

Now, at the CFTC, “we’re emphasizing training our internal staff on the use of our own data and on AI,” he said on a panel about regulators and AI. He pointed to Rahul Varma, the deputy director for product and market analytics branch in the division of market oversight, who identifies training needs across divisions, “to make sure we have an enterprise approach.”

The CFPB launched a program in 2022 dedicated to hiring technologists steeped “not just in data science and engineering but in product management and human-centered design,” said Erie Meyer, chief technologist and senior advisor to the director at the CFPB. “When you are looking at something like dark patterns, there is a different set of technical insights you need that are more in the design realm.”

Meyer also brought up pooled hiring efforts, where a number of enforcement agencies can pull from a pool of candidates.

“We do technical vetting to ensure these are the right candidates and help place them in the right agency,” she said.

Terah Lyons, global head of AI policy at JPMorgan Chase, said the bank is investing in apprenticeships and upskilling as well as a new chief data and analytics function in the company. 

“I work for a company with a vocal executive with respect to AI issues,” she said. In June 2023, CEO Jamie Dimon appointed Teresa Heitsenrether as the bank’s first chief data and analytics officer, leading the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies across its operations.

“She has provided a lot of strategic direction and more uniformity to our approaches,” said Lyons.

At the same time, Lyons acknowledged an imbalance in hiring.

“This talent question is experienced by sectors across the board, although particularly pronounced, in civil society and the public sector,” she said on her panel about ensuring the safe adoption of AI with Rice and Delmolino. 

“That’s because you can pay more than I can,” quipped Rice.