AiThority Interview with Brian Stafford, President and Chief Executive Officer at Diligent

Brian Stafford, President and Chief Executive Officer at Diligent, discusses the integration of ethical AI and governance in leading a successful SaaS company in the Q&A:

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Hi Brian, welcome to our AiThority Interview Series. We’d love to hear about your professional journey. Please share some key milestones and experiences that have shaped your path to becoming a leader in AI / SaaS.

Hi, thanks for having me. My entrepreneurial journey started during the dot-com bubble, when I founded a company that sold cars on-line. I grew the company to 350 employees and more than $100 million in revenue in just three years, before ultimately having to shut down and divest the business when the bubble burst.

After that roller coaster experience, I went back to school for a graduate degree before finding an opportunity with McKinsey. Both of these were major growing opportunities for me. At McKinsey, I was able to connect with C-Suite leaders and help develop the tools needed to lead a SaaS company. McKinsey taught me that good governance must drive financial performance, improve transparency and accountability, and benefit all stakeholders.

Also Read: AiThority Interview with Carolyn Duby, Field CTO and Cyber Security GTM Lead at Cloudera

Today, I lead Diligent, the leading GRC SaaS company that seamlessly integrates board management with a comprehensive set of governance, risk, and compliance applications. In my first year, I successfully transitioned Diligent from a publicly traded company to a private company. And now, more than 700,000 board members and leaders rely on Diligent to clarify risk and elevate their governance practices.

Diligent AI sports a ton of features, such as risk disclosure, peer analysis and board material summarization. Explain how these features specifically cater to the needs of governance businesses.

Companies today face a dynamic and evolving risk landscape. With new risks advancing every day, having the information necessary to make informed decisions on your business is more important than ever. Our goal with Diligent AI was to help organizations expand resources, enhance communication and facilitate better, faster decision making to better manage and respond to risk.

A couple examples: Companies can instantly grasp where they stand on ESG and climate risks with our pre-trained AI model, delving into 26 key categories, including greenhouse gas emissions and supply chain integrity, to clearly see their organizational footprint and compare to their industry peers.

Audit, risk and compliance teams can also stay ahead of regulations with advanced AI that tracks, categorizes and deciphers regulatory changes. This helps them remain nimble to align policies and practices to new and amended regulations.

For boards, they not only have access to a 24/7 AI-powered virtual assistant to quickly help answer any questions, but also get an easily digestible breakdown of the data insights, giving context-aware summaries of board materials to shorten the come up to speed to kick off board meetings.

As CEO, you emphasize the importance of going faster while maintaining product excellence. How do you balance the push for rapid innovation with the need to ensure reliability and security in your services?

For Diligent, a big part of this balance involves tapping into our client network, listening to their challenges and what they’re most focused on, and then ruthlessly prioritizing solutions that address these pain points. We incorporate the voice of the customer directly into our product roadmap and gather feedback from quarterly business reviews and product roundtables.

Of course, security, compliance and reliability are core to everything we do. Our platform has global availability with regionalized data storage and protections to comply with data privacy and location requirements. Diligent’s Security Program is also based on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and Diligent follows ISO/IEC 27001 standards. The platform is ISO 27001 certified and undergoes annual audits.

AI ethics is a critical discussion in every tech sector. What principles guide Diligent’s approach to ethical AI usage, and how do you ensure these standards are maintained?

Overall, our approach at Diligent is to meet the highest safety, security and ethical standards. That is built on three pillars:

Keeping owned data private and secure

Company’s data should remain confidential to just that company. What the Diligent AI platform learns from customer data stays with that customer data and is not mixed or combined with others’ data.

Labelling AI-generated content

By clearly labelling AI-generated content, users can easily identify what has been generated and what hasn’t.

Shared responsibility model of security and compliance

Security and compliance are joint ventures between us and our customers. Diligent manages the overall application infrastructure, keeping customer data secure in partnership with AWS. Customers have full ownership of their data and have to intentionally opt-in to receive AI benefits.

What future enhancements can we expect for the Diligent AI platform?

We do have a number of future enhancements planned to assist GRC professionals to stay on top of regulatory environments and mitigate any potential risks that pop up. One of the largest areas of growth is our partnerships bringing in additional third party and market data to the Diligent One Platform. We are able to integrate many external systems and data into Diligent boards, including Moody’s, with many more exciting partnerships to come.

For young professionals what advice would you give them on leveraging AI technologies in governance, risk, and compliance to advance their careers?

GRC professionals can leverage AI to reduce manual tasks and boost productivity, detect risks early on, and achieve a higher level of compliance. But AI is not without error and comes with its own set of risks.

GRC leaders have an opportunity to be champions of responsible and ethical use of AI within their organizations. I would recommend getting AI certified to learn more about the intersection of AI and ethics, and help steer their organization toward sustainable, trustworthy practices.

Also Read: Role of AI in Cybersecurity: Protecting Digital Assets From Cybercrime

Finally, as a leader managing a rapidly growing company and personal passions, what strategies do you find most effective for balancing high-level leadership with personal commitments?

I’ve found that it’s not so much about balance, but rather about prioritization. Both professional and personal commitments are important, so I need to make the most of the time I have for each.

When I’m traveling, I double down on work. Flights, in particular, provide a unique opportunity to focus and be more creative without the usual day-to-day distractions. This approach allows me to dedicate my time at home primarily to my family and personal interests, ensuring that these aspects of my life are not neglected.

I’m also an early riser, which I find incredibly beneficial. This allows me to address emails and watch the news before arriving at the office. By the time I engage with my team, clients, and other stakeholders, I’m already informed and prepared for the day ahead.

In essence, my strategy lies in understanding my own calendar, knowing when I’m most productive, and aligning my tasks accordingly. I make conscious choices about what to focus on and when, ensuring that both my professional responsibilities and personal commitments receive the attention they deserve.

Also Read: AI and Social Media: What Should Social Media Users Understand About Algorithms?

Thank you, Brian, for your insights; we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.

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