Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Sid Baidwan
75 Plays3 months ago
We talk about going from banking in Sydney, to McKinsey in London and back to banking in Sydney (albeit as an AI expert).
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Sid Badwan's Career Journey
00:00:01
Joe Waltman
All right, today we have Sid Badwan. Sid, thank you for joining.
00:00:05
Sid Baidwan
Thanks for having me.
00:00:07
Joe Waltman
ah First question, same as always, refresh our memories. What were you doing before INSEAD and what have you been up to for the last 20ish years?
00:00:16
Sid Baidwan
Oh, well. Before INSEAD, fascinatingly enough, i was in Sydney working here for three years.
00:00:29
Sid Baidwan
The reason I say fascinatingly is because that's exactly where I am right now.
00:00:33
Joe Waltman
Ha ha ha ha.
00:00:34
Sid Baidwan
been here since COVID practically. And the reason is the same connection back in 2001, 2000, which is back then my girlfriend, now my wife Louise. So I met her in Australia pre-INSEAD and ah got married, which is probably the most important event between, I guess,
Career Path: From Citicorp to PwC to INSEAD
00:00:54
Sid Baidwan
INSEAD and now. Got married to her.
00:00:56
Sid Baidwan
Well, maybe having our son. That could be the most important one. um Yeah, and she's obviously based from Sydney, so that's why we moved back to Sydney in 2020. In between, um it's been of largely a more, I would say, run-of-the-mill regular life.
00:01:16
Sid Baidwan
So I joined ah what a so joined McKinsey. I was in London and...
00:01:19
Joe Waltman
Well, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
00:01:20
Sid Baidwan
Okay.
00:01:21
Joe Waltman
I'm i'm sorry. um but let Let's back up. What were you doing professionally before INSEAD, before you went INSEAD?
00:01:25
Sid Baidwan
Ah, profession. So i was... i had two jobs back... back to backspace to say. So the first three years I was at Citi or Citicorp in their technology area. And then right before INSEAD, which is three years leading into INSEAD, I was at Bryce Waterhouse Coopers. That was in Sydney.
00:01:46
Joe Waltman
All of that in Sydney. me
00:01:48
Sid Baidwan
So the first three years in Citicorp was in India and London. So two years was in Bombay.
00:01:53
Joe Waltman
Oh, cool.
00:01:56
Sid Baidwan
So I grew up in Delhi. My first job was Citicorp in Bombay and I had two years in Bombay and one year in London. And then from London, I moved three years to PricewaterhouseCoopers in Sydney and then in India.
00:02:12
Joe Waltman
Awesome. Okay. So then you were beginning the post-Insead journey.
McKinsey to HSBC: Navigating the Financial Crisis
00:02:17
Joe Waltman
So what happened what's happened over the last 20-ish years since Insead?
00:02:21
Sid Baidwan
Yeah, so joined McKinsey. This was in London. Was there till 2006 from memory? I may have the year out by one or maybe 2007, I think. 2007 was a financial crisis because one of my distinct memories in McKinsey
00:02:37
Sid Baidwan
is at the peak of the financial crisis in Canary Wolf and could practically see the Lehman Brothers building and you know people kind of moving out of that building. So some amazing, well,
00:02:53
Sid Baidwan
Mixed memories, because obviously 2007 financial crisis was a very mixed or tragic moment for most people, but amazing memories in the sense, you know, just memories that get etched in one's kind of professional life at least.
00:03:05
Sid Baidwan
And I know friends, I have a good friend of mine who lost his job in Lehman as well, so it is a bit personal.
00:03:11
Joe Waltman
So you were, yeah you were obviously with McKinsey in London for what those three or four years after it sounds like.
00:03:11
Sid Baidwan
oh
00:03:17
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:03:17
Sid Baidwan
Yes. So I left in 2007 and in fact, I joined HSBC, which is why ah that memory is strong. And I'm sorry, I'm jogging my memory. I joined McKinsey. Sorry, I left McKinsey and I joined HSBC, Canary Wolf, right at the peak of the financial crisis. I would say a couple of months, I think it was around August, September 2007 or eight. I have the years mixed up now.
00:03:41
Sid Baidwan
And that's when kind of the Lehman Brothers moment happened. ah
00:03:44
Joe Waltman
So right before Lehman, you you jump from consulting to to banking.
00:03:44
Sid Baidwan
So.
00:03:48
Sid Baidwan
That's right.
00:03:49
Joe Waltman
Oh, awesome. Good timing.
00:03:49
Sid Baidwan
Sorry, thanks for jogging my memory. And i'm trying to figure out when it was 2008. It's all coming back. And I know, I'm sorry, 2007, August. And the reason for all that the trigger of leaving McKinsey, joining HSBC was my wife was pregnant. So now I can put the timeline exactly. So my son's born in February 2008.
00:04:09
Sid Baidwan
which means that in 2007 August, give or take a couple of months, I left McKinsey, joined HSBC, and that's when i was at Canary Evolve. That's when kind of, you know, has had had the whole leaving brother, et cetera, moment.
00:04:23
Sid Baidwan
During McKinsey, also spent almost a year in New York. bit of it was in San Francisco, but largely in New York.
00:04:27
Joe Waltman
Nice.
Innovation in China: Building a Digital Bank for HSBC
00:04:29
Joe Waltman
nice
00:04:31
Sid Baidwan
Post, well, let's talk about HSBC because that was 12 years of my life, probably the most significant part of my professional life. Joined in London, spent a couple of years there, as I mentioned earlier.
00:04:43
Sid Baidwan
This was initially in strategy, but then eventually moved on to HSBC Asia Pacific and spent most of my life from 2010 to 2020 in Asia Pacific, Hong Kong and Indonesia as well, but more in Hong Kong.
00:05:01
Sid Baidwan
i And that was largely in consumer banking, retail, wealth management, mix of roles, and ah running a P&L, risk management, bit of strategy.
00:05:16
Sid Baidwan
And probably most excitingly, i was asked to build a digital bank for HSBC in China, which probably was the best three years of my life. So you can imagine having almost a startup style gig,
00:05:27
Sid Baidwan
but more in the context of a large organization. And this was right over the border from Hong Kong, or Guangdong province Province or Shenzhen or Pearl River Delta, whatever you know ah people of familiar familiar with.
00:05:38
Sid Baidwan
It was just amazing those three years getting the thing built up, but critically bird's eye view or a sitting view and conversational view of how advanced China was this 2016, 17, 18 in the whole digital sphere back then. AI was less of a theme back then.
00:05:59
Joe Waltman
Yeah, I mean, the, the, my maybe Silicon Valley bias or, or prejudice is that, you know, you tried it as a, as a foreigner and working for a foreign company in China, ah you're, you're really, ah you know, a couple strikes behind the count from, from day one.
00:06:19
Joe Waltman
And, you know, if they let you do business, there's a good chance they'll just copy you and do it themselves. say Is that at all fair?
00:06:27
Sid Baidwan
I think there is an element of you know the Chinese have been very fast followers and less innovators, but I believe that narrative is more true 10 or 15 years back.
00:06:43
Joe Waltman
Mm-hmm.
00:06:43
Sid Baidwan
oh And you know I think fast followership, I've spent my entire life in corporate, right? and most corporate leaders in the world, if you park the big three tech or the magnificent seven, how you phrase it, and you know the parallel universe in China, most corporates succeed as being good fast followers, not leading edge.
00:07:08
Sid Baidwan
But what I will say is i think that narrative of fast follower, less innovator started changing even while I was there. even digital in while I was there,
00:07:22
Sid Baidwan
we were able to adopt pretty enhanced digital technology like you know things
00:07:28
Joe Waltman
Thank you.
00:07:29
Sid Baidwan
ah video teller machines. I think we were using really complex authentication mechanisms, which are normal, common use, like two-factor and all, but way back then we were using them in China. So so the innovation was, I think in 16, 17, 18, my well biggest, I guess, insight was kind of Joe, what he just said, right?
00:07:52
Sid Baidwan
that China's reached an inflection point going from fast forward to a parallel innovator. And I think people used to refer to Shenzhen or Pearl River as a Silicon kind of Delta of China, right? um And fast forward now, so in 2020, I left HSBC.
Strategic Transformations at Suncorp in Australia
00:08:17
Sid Baidwan
It was related largely to for family reasons. Because my wife has said is's from here, her parents were getting old. Our son was entering ES seven, which is a pivotal year in Australian schooling systems. so We decided to move to, to, uh, Australia.
00:08:36
Sid Baidwan
ah joined SunCorp, which is a bank and an insurance. Uh, although. And I joined the strategy team initially.
00:08:47
Sid Baidwan
oh And interestingly, I was hoping in all kind of honesty to work longer at the bank there because my background is all banking.
00:08:56
Sid Baidwan
But you've got to be fair to your role. And as part of my role in strategy, one of my first recommendations was we should exit the bank. So Suncorp did exit the bank, we sold it to ANZ, it which is one of the big four banks in Australia.
00:09:11
Sid Baidwan
And we were left as a pure kind general insurance company. Then the last two or three years at Suncorp, out of the four, would say the last two and a half maybe, i I kind of pivoted my role a bit from strategy to, I would say, transformation, an industry that was more conventional transformation, like automation, digitization.
00:09:34
Sid Baidwan
And in the last two years when the chat GPD movement happened in the world, i think it was November 22, if I'm here. But early 23, we were one of the fast kind of follower organizations in Australia to it really lead on the AI transformation from a corporate space.
00:09:56
Sid Baidwan
So I let SumCops, pretty much from inception through full operationalization, SumCops AI enabled transformation.
00:10:05
Sid Baidwan
Left SumCop late last year, some late so late, sorry, go ahead.
00:10:07
Joe Waltman
Well, hold on, hold on. let's Let's talk about that. That's interesting. So what what does it mean for an insurance company to, you know, AI transform? What are some specific things that that they're they're using it for?
00:10:17
Sid Baidwan
Yeah, it's it's's it's a good question, right? ah And look, I'll say a few different things on AI, and I'm going combine it slightly with my current role. because and And the reason I'm going to combine it slightly is because AI is such a fast evolving field.
00:10:34
Sid Baidwan
I think my image of what ai was in 23 versus what it is now has reasonably evolved probably because is moving so fast, right? And then just f by So right now I'm working for a mid-market Australian financial services company called Smart Group, and I'm the chief AI officer there.
00:10:52
Sid Baidwan
And that role includes AI, data, and automation.
00:10:55
Joe Waltman
I've never heard that that title before. there's there's there's There's chief AI officers now That's great.
00:10:59
Sid Baidwan
Yeah, and I think that just gives you a sense of, you know, ah the transformative potential of AI. So going back to your question, right? um What I would say is two or three things about AI, right?
00:11:14
Sid Baidwan
One,
00:11:17
Sid Baidwan
And insurance or i would say financial services more broadly because I'm happy to talk about banks given my background there um and also you know just financial services. I think by and large across most financial services, but definitely banking and insurance.
00:11:33
Sid Baidwan
AI can be applied to the entire value chain. There is no part of the value chain which I've looked at, or when I say I, am I'm being you know generous way in the sense it's we, I would say, because I had conversations with big tech, have them very regularly, with consultants, with other banks, other insurers globally.
00:11:44
Joe Waltman
Okay.
AI's Role in Financial Services Transformation
00:11:50
Sid Baidwan
There's literally no part of the value chain that AI will or should not be impacting. So that's point one. I think there is an question on how much the impact will be on each part.
00:12:04
Sid Baidwan
And then there's a related question on how do you approach something, like where do you start? And finally, there's a question on what is a prudent risk-based approach. So by that, what I mean is when we were at Suncorp, we said we don't want to start with customer-facing AI.
00:12:25
Sid Baidwan
but you know, like one of the leading-edge companies, I guess, in the world on customer-facing AI would be Klarna. But they have a lot of respect for them, but they're a bit of the you know the beacon out there. right They test, learn, fail, test, learn, fail. That's their model, right?
00:12:43
Sid Baidwan
Whereas for most conventional financial service corporates, e.g. where I am and where I was, or you HSBC where I was earlier, My view is the model can't be bleeding edge of AI because these are regulated industries very heavily and they're pretty conservative.
00:13:01
Sid Baidwan
So yes, it can be applied to the full value chain, but where you start and how you manage your risk from a but roadmap effectively becomes quite critical.
00:13:12
Joe Waltman
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but my my question, you probably said it was laceeds a little bit of skepticism that a that a big insurance company would actually like you know implement AI even two years ago. were Were there
00:13:25
Sid Baidwan
So you're right. Let me answer the questions differently. right ah So there's an interesting MIT, think it was an MIT report that came on four weeks back, that 95% of all AI-enabled transformations have not given an ROI till date.
00:13:45
Joe Waltman
um That's probably low. Yeah.
00:13:47
Sid Baidwan
Well, 95% haven't, so there's not much left.
00:13:50
Sid Baidwan
So I would say that it two or three pieces on it, right? And one of the things I've started to do, I've started writing articles on LinkedIn, exactly on, you know, broadly, why is ROI and financial services so elusive?
00:13:50
Joe Waltman
yeah
00:14:02
Sid Baidwan
But here are my three takes on it, right? Two or three takes. One, exactly what you said. I think for most organizations, especially in Australia, but I would say across,
00:14:13
Sid Baidwan
um there is a fair level of conservatism built in. So there is an element of leap of faith, obviously, you know and with any new tool, right? And that conservatism is rightly built into the boards because they are like, a lot of them have been burned through technology projects, right? Or the dream that it will happen today when it happens five years from now.
00:14:35
Sid Baidwan
So I think that's there's definitely a big part. And at Suncorp, that was the same thing. I had to spend a lot of my own time educating both peers, executives, and the board as well, which is pretty much what i'm doing right now here as well. And in fact, I'm doing some pro bono work for a charity to enable them on their AI journey. It's a health charity. They're very keen, but it's the same thing. The first step is educating the board. So that but but that's kind of one, right?
00:15:01
Sid Baidwan
the The second thing is, and this is, I wouldn't say controversial, but because I've tested this with many executives, in fact, some of the CEOs as well.
00:15:15
Sid Baidwan
The biggest distinction between failure and success of AI is one simple thing. If the CEO of the board thinks it's a technology agenda or topic, it will fail. AI is not a technology topic, and the simple reason is Most of the heavy lifting in the technology is done by the big tech, the are the creators of the front-tier models, ah yeah be it OpenAI, be it Gemini, the four kind of pretty strong models out there.
00:15:41
Sid Baidwan
So what AI is, is less of a technology project. I'm not saying there aren't technology elements. you know Clearly, the AI platform you need, some engineering capability. But most of the other capabilities you need for sustainable are not AI related.
00:15:56
Sid Baidwan
it's people leadership, it's a strategic use case portfolio, it's risk management, And where most CEOs conflate and confuse this is, oh, we don't really know what to do with AI, why don't I give it to the CIO?
00:16:11
Sid Baidwan
And then the CIOs have a very traditional tech background. So we can talk at length on this, but I would say if there's one insight I have from having done in almost two companies and a third one pro bono, it's the same theme again and again.
00:16:26
Sid Baidwan
Whoever thinks of AI as an IT topic fails, and whoever thinks of AI as a CEO topic succeeds. And I think, I don't have signs on this, but I think 95% of CEOs think it's an IT topic and they will fail.
00:16:40
Joe Waltman
Interesting.
Chief AI Officer at Smart Group: Focus on Customer Experience
00:16:41
Joe Waltman
Interesting. It sounds ah like a good segue into your current thing, which ah tell us more about.
00:16:48
Sid Baidwan
Yes, so so and one on one hand, it's quite similar to the SEMCorp. ah As I said, it's a smaller organization, which in a way has its pluses because we're far more nimble and agile. you know and and you would know that, Joe, having worked in a range of organizations.
00:17:05
Sid Baidwan
So it's a new role, as you rightly pointed out, and we effectively created it because we, or I guess the organization, of the CEO created because it signals also our intent to really embrace AI in a sensible, prudent, risk-based way, again, with the intent to transform the entire operation including, by by the way, and that's the only point I'll make in the interest of time, not just productivity, which is always you know an easy ah or easier area for AI to get into, but more specifically, customer experience. I think what people don't realize is what an amazing customer experience can be delivered through the lens of AI. I mean, for and for example, a lot of our customers
00:17:50
Sid Baidwan
they aren't native English speaking, but our contact centers all in Australia and I would say in the large part, all English native speakers, right? So AR contact center only works plus or minus 8 to 8, but lot of our customers are shift workers, they're nurses in hospitals and all who actually can't interact with us 8 to 8 and they happen to be non-native speakers. So you can imagine, and we haven't done this yet, but it's our intent at some stage,
00:18:20
Sid Baidwan
what an amazing customer experience we could deliver if fake you we could use conversational AI agents, again, in a sensible risk control way, to allow 24 by seven in the language of their choice.
00:18:30
Sid Baidwan
So there's a huge journey we see, you know, transformative from a customer experience perspective. Way different, by the way, from where 90% of the banks are and the insurers are, which is all about operational back office.
00:18:42
Sid Baidwan
And that's why I really love this role, because to me, it's... For us, it's all about the customer as opposed to, there's nothing wrong, but as opposed to the cost and productivity lens. oh And yeah, so this role has a bit of both, but what I truly love is as that the ability to transform from the CX piece, I would say.
00:19:00
Joe Waltman
Yeah, whereas other similar organizations would be yeah more conservative, shall we say, and and focusing on back office stuff.
00:19:07
Sid Baidwan
Yeah, and also because you know if you're a big organization like Samkof had between 8,000 to 10,000 people, HSBC, 250,000 people, there's so much scale in the back office that if you automate, or when I say automate using AI, it's a large percentage.
00:19:19
Joe Waltman
Okay.
00:19:22
Sid Baidwan
So smart group where I work is 850 employees. By the time you get into specific functions and sub-functions, they're quite subscale. which means that you know if if even if you get a 20% uplift in a function which has got three people, what does that actually mean? 0.6, 20% of three.
00:19:40
Sid Baidwan
Whereas the same function in HSBC or Sunkov would be 30 people or 300 people. So the maths is so different. um Yeah, but that's the long shot of it.
00:19:49
Joe Waltman
Now, now the it's it's obviously interesting to talk about this sort of conceptual stuff, but but I think where AI gets really interesting is that is specific use cases. And you know to the extent you can talk about this, are there are there some specific things you're doing right now with it?
00:19:58
Sid Baidwan
Yes.
00:20:03
Sid Baidwan
Yeah, so um the one use case which we're doing now and which did also back in my previous firm is knowledge management, right? So, I mean, financial services, if you think about it, they're a function of marketing on one end, deep analytics and operations, you can argue, but then what is their IP?
00:20:25
Sid Baidwan
beyond operational scale or efficiency and marketing. And you of course, if you're a bank or insurance credit underwriting or or risk and risk management. the The common factor almost across all financial services is their IP or knowledge, right? the These are regulated industries typically.
00:20:43
Sid Baidwan
So their knowledge, their ability to communicate to customers the complexity of their products, the services and the processes. oh But here's the problem, right? I mean, a lot of the knowledge just sits with people. So the ability to be able to easily abstract that knowledge from people into an AI, let's say, set of use cases. would say it's a family of use cases, but I would just call it knowledge management so that both staff and eventually customers can interact with an AI agent to directly understand, you know, in the language of their choice, in the financial literacy range of their choice.
00:21:23
Sid Baidwan
of, hey, I don't really understand, make it up, how a variable mortgage works or how you know my insurance premium is calculated. ah we can spend minutes explaining it to you, but why don't have an AI agent?
00:21:34
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:21:36
Sid Baidwan
Because guess what? but We're going to get on the phone sometimes, an ex-CEO of an insurance company or a chief underwriter as a customer. who knows this inside out and he's going to have or she's going have very, very different questions.
00:21:50
Sid Baidwan
And then we're going to get sometimes literally a plumber who, you know, ah expertise is not understanding financial products. So knowledge management is probably the most obvious use case. and and And then you get into obviously, you know, with the advent of agent tech which I would caution, I'm sorry to let things great promise, but I think it's very early days.
00:22:12
Sid Baidwan
Agenting AI should really enable back and mid-office transformation because it can effectively make decisions that humans have been making. would say, you know, in the large 80-20 rule, right? 80% of decisions back and mid-office people make, e.g., like, when I say HSBC running risk management, things related to financial crime.
00:22:31
Sid Baidwan
In all fairness, 80% of the decisions our employees are making will be very easy decisions to make. And I can definitely see a world where And I know for a fact that the use case on compliance and KYC and onboarding are very common ones in bank for that reason.
00:22:48
Sid Baidwan
And they should get automated more and more. And guess what? My guess is they'll be better because they'll be consistent. Right now, it's so dependent on the individual who makes these decisions. But there'll always be a need for, you know i wouldn't say human in the loop, the latest is
Strategic Impact of AI and Leadership Insights
00:23:01
Sid Baidwan
jargon. I don't like it as human on the loop.
00:23:03
Sid Baidwan
which is you're kind of evaluating the aggregate results as opposed to in every step of the process as a human. Because if there's every step of the process of a human, there's no advantage of using AIR.
00:23:14
Sid Baidwan
So lot of also what we're trying to push towards is human on the loop, not human in the loop in every decision, unless it's a high-risk decision.
00:23:23
Joe Waltman
Yeah, yeah, very interesting. This is a, it's really nice to hear sort of how you've, um you know, you've transformed yourself into this ah this AI expert ah and in in these industries. That's great.
00:23:35
Joe Waltman
I usually wrap up these these conversations with with kind of a two-part question. And if you don't have a good answer to say, not interested, and we can say goodbye because I'm not sure this is a good question or not. But is is there um is there anything that that we as the, you know, your your batch mates or your promotion mates and see I can do for you and vice versa. What might you be able to do to do for us?
00:23:57
Sid Baidwan
Oh, I'll answer it as a collective. Look, the field of air is really evolving, right? So for me, it's a lucky coincidence in life that way back in my but and my engineering 30 years back almost.
00:24:15
Sid Baidwan
My thesis was on pattern recognition, machine learning, ah you know and then I kind of was always very close to this field. And way back in 2019, 20, I was a guest lecturer at Hong Kong University on application of AI in business, et cetera.
00:24:29
Sid Baidwan
So what or i'm I feel I'm lucky that I've been semi-close to this field, but look, all I'd say, it's a rapidly evolving field, both in terms of the technology and critically what you touched on, the use cases and the application.
Call for AI Collaboration and Community Building
00:24:43
Sid Baidwan
So that would hope i would say I would love to have a small group of us who are more close to this field and just on a regular, make it a monthly quarterly, just exchange notes, right? Keeping the confidentiality of the organization. Because things are rolling so quickly, um literally, that there is no best way.
00:25:03
Sid Baidwan
than to interact with similar-minded peers. And the other thing what I like about it is you speak to a consultant or a big tech, there's always a sales pitch, right? So you just don't know what's the reality versus what's the hype.
00:25:16
Sid Baidwan
So that'd be probably my only ask that if you know if there is a set of us who's kind of proximate to the field, but maybe we should set up for some kind of a group or whatever, right? Something similar.
00:25:25
Joe Waltman
Sounds like you're you've tasked yourself with setting up a sub WhatsApp group for for these people. Be careful asking questions because you usually have to find the answers to them, right?
00:25:35
Sid Baidwan
good Fair enough, but no, happy to. if you know Even if we have two or three more people, which anybody's aware of, I'm happy to create that group as long as we get the seat.
00:25:46
Sid Baidwan
And um' yeah i look I'm super passionate about this topic. I genuinely believe, and I'll close on this, right, it will transform the world as we know it, both for better and hopefully not for the worse.
00:25:50
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:25:57
Sid Baidwan
But there is a glass of wine kind of philosophical new ah kind of negative view on AI, which I also hold, which is more corporate, just where it goes long-term, but that's what a glass of wine.
00:26:11
Joe Waltman
Well, Sid, thank you very, very much. It was nice to it wass nice to catch up. i appreciate the time.
00:26:16
Sid Baidwan
Arsene, Jeff, thanks for setting this up. Take care.
00:26:19
Joe Waltman
Bye.