Interview: Joe Depa, global chief innovation officer, EY

Innovating in the right places

As global CIO, Depa is responsible for advancing the firm’s innovation strategy. His team helps the business exploit value-adding technologies, from new products and services to better ways of working. There are three main components to his role.

One part is running the firm’s data office – EY’s chief data officer reports to Depa. The second component of his role is what he calls responsible AI agent orchestration: “That’s about the ability to leverage the data using our policies and frameworks.”

Depa says part of that work involves creating an assurance practice for the data and AI agents that will be used in the future, which he refers to as a “critical” piece of work, given the fast-moving nature of the digital environment.

The third component of Depa’s role is to think about the next frontier, which covers technological developments on the horizon: “It’s focused on things like robotics, physical, cyber, AI, quantum – some of the technologies that are not necessarily having an impact right now, but they’re coming soon, and they’re coming fast.

“We have a data-led approach, unsurprisingly, because I’m a data guy at heart, and we look at venture capital and private equity spend. That approach helps us identify where the market’s headed by markets, regions and industries.

“For venture capital, we know the timeline is typically five to 10 years, and we know the private equity timeline is a little bit shorter, call it five or less. Right now, we’re seeing an uptick in physical AI, which is robotics, particularly in some areas, like Asia-Pacific. So, the data we collect allows me to think, ‘Okay, I need to focus on that area’.”

Depa says that another focus for the next frontier is what he refers to as the omniverse, which encompasses metaverse and digital twin technologies: “The ability to simulate a multitude of scenarios at once is seeing a lot of investment,” he says. With this knowledge acquired, Depa helps EY and its staff to deploy technologies internally and to advise clients externally.

“It’s about asking questions like, ‘How do you apply the right AI-ready data within our environment? How do we ensure we’re doing things responsibly from an agentic perspective, and how do we make sure we’ve got the next frontier technologies covered within our user interface?’. Answering those questions is 50% of my job. The other 50% of the job is thinking about how we take those technologies and help our clients.”

Creating an effective strategy

Depa’s 100-strong innovation team works with EY’s 400,000 professionals to highlight opportunities for data-led business change. The firm’s governance structure means innovation is applied consistently and quickly across service lines and regions.

“When I came into the role, I said the last thing I want to do is centralise data, AI and innovation because that approach stifles change, it slows things down,” he says. “My team’s role is to enable, orchestrate and raise visibility about what’s working in each of the regions and service lines.”

Depa’s team spreads good ideas from one place in the business to another, ensuring the gap between theoretical and practical deployment is bridged rapidly and effectively. While he’s only been in the CIO role for six months, Depa can already point to some key achievements.

“I want us to be the best in data – AI-ready data that we own. I want us to be the best at securing the data and harvesting that data for our clients in a secure and responsible AI manner”

Joe Depa, EY

“What I wanted to do very quickly was establish our applied innovation strategy – that was step one,” he says. “Applied innovation is an important term, and I chose it purposefully because I wanted to ensure that we’re applying innovation. I didn’t want our teams to feel like we were just a think-tank that built things in a lab that didn’t apply to EY or our clients.”

Depa built the applied innovation strategy with input from regional leaders, market leaders, EY’s clients and the firm’s professional teams. He wanted to understand how to focus the strategy on compelling ideas, which can be a struggle for innovation chiefs.

“When I came in, and I think many companies have this issue, we were trying to do a lot of things all at once and, therefore, not doing anything well,” he says. “I said, ‘Let’s focus on three areas we can do well based on our brand positioning.’”

Delivering excellence in three areas

Depa says the first of those three areas is data: “I want us to be the best in data – AI-ready data that we own. I want us to be the best at securing the data and harvesting that data for our clients in a secure and responsible AI manner.”

The second area is creating differentiation around responsible AI: “I want to truly embed responsible AI into our processes and the way our clients leverage data and AI. I call it the orchestration tower because our assurance practice can help raise any issues or risks that can provide traceability and audibility for the AI agents of the future.”

The third area covers what Depa refers to as the innovation muscle, which he says will differentiate the AI and data pioneers from the laggards.

“That’s about how we, as an innovation team, help our organisation adapt to the rapid pace of change,” he adds. “The speed is fast for everyone, including EY and our clients. Success means enabling the right people, processes and training so our teams can rise to the occasion.”

Depa says his team has made good progress across those three areas and is applying the principles internally and with the firm’s clients. The team is also looking at how it will invest in talent, via internal training programmes and external hiring, to support development across those three areas.

New products are being pushed into operation. EY has deployed a new toolkit for assurance that allows the firm to embed responsible AI into how it audits and provides assurance capabilities for its clients. EY has also pioneered developments in synthetic data, which companies use to fill gaps where real data is limited, especially in regulated industries.

“Synthetic data enables us to try some simulations and scenarios with our clients, without using real data,” he says. “We can test things more safely. Synthetic data will be an important component of an AI-ready data strategy for EY and our clients.”

Training the innovation muscle

Depa is pleased with the progress during his first six months at EY. He refers to the importance of an “open innovation ecosystem”, which allows CIOs to bring together the brightest minds and technologies to get to market quickly. He says the best innovation chiefs are humble and look to learn something new daily.

“I believe that, for innovation officers of the future, the concept of centralised control will diminish because it doesn’t give you speed,” he says. “The second thing to recognise is that no innovation chief has all the answers. All CIOs must know how to collaborate and work together with alliance partners, leaders and clients to get answers.”

During the next 24 months, Depa wants EY to become an expert in AI-ready data, ensuring the firm uses and deploys responsible AI at scale. He says any business that gets the data foundations right now will be best placed to exploit agentic AI in a secure and compliant manner, adding: “I want us to be the leaders in responsible AI orchestration.”

Depa returns to the concept of the innovation muscle and says he’s eager for people across the organisation to feel confident they can use technology to help them do their jobs better. He wants people to adopt and adapt emerging technology faster than today. As an example, Depa refers to EY.ai EYQ, a bespoke generative AI platform designed to empower the firm’s staff with data-powered insights in a private, secure environment.

“EYQ is a large language model platform that allows EY professionals to interact with a ChatGPT-style chatbot. We have over 100,000 monthly users, so about 25% of our employees use the platform. But what I find interesting is that our data shows that the employees who use the technology are more engaged,” he says.

“Those results show you that AI can help you, in many ways, to do your job better. You can feel more empowered. You can focus on things you want to do instead of repetitive tasks. I hope we continue to see that trend develop over the next 24 months, where employees are more engaged, happier about their jobs, and feel like they’re having an impact. That’s when I’ll know we’ve been successful.”