AI is rapidly becoming a part of our everyday lives and it’s transforming how we connect, work and do business.
It’s driving advancements in every industry from healthcare and finance to education – all while creating a new set of ethical and regulatory challenges.
Based in Melbourne, Bain & Company partner Donna Enverga has been working in tech and innovation for more than two decades.
What makes AI stand out as an innovation compared to other technologies she’s worked on is how quickly it’s being adopted.
“AI allows you to harness the power of data to inform or predict the future,” she says.
“It’s surprised me how quickly AI has moved from a niche technical domain to a core strategic conversation across every industry. It’s not seen as a technology tool – basically, it’s seen as a business enabler.
“It has outpaced many of the digital transformations I’ve seen before. It’s probably comparable to the world when the internet started.
“It’s exciting but it comes with a lot of responsibility.”
The demand for skilled talent
With such a fast-moving technology, one concern is the lack of women helping to shape and drive it.
While the number of women working in AI has been growing, they remain largely underrepresented with recent data showing they make up just 27 per cent of workers in the industry.
Research by Bain & Company also shows a clear shortfall in talent more generally, with AI adoption outpacing the availability of skilled professionals.
It projects the number of AI specialists in Australia will jump to 85,000 by 2027.
Even with this rise, Bain’s research has forecast a shortfall of up to 60,000 AI professionals, with demand these roles expected to exceed 140,000 in the next two years.
IBM ANZ Chief Technology Officer Angelica Veness and Enverga are early pioneers.
Their unique journeys into the industry and the barriers they’ve overcome offer powerful insights into the kind of leadership it takes to navigate this rapidly evolving space.
Being a problem-solver with focus
Enverga’s career in tech, data processing and innovation saw her working in AI early on.
She gets excited about “any innovation” but says the speed at which AI is evolving means those working on it need to take a focused and responsible approach.
“It’s the balance of how fast innovation is coming and the adoption for the business … how to make sure we’re not going too fast,” she says.
“There’s a lot of experimentation happening in the market.
“My advice to clients when I speak to them about AI is pick one or two areas that you can actually scale. Think about the long-term as well.
“There are lots of proof-of-concepts that don’t come to life, so pick areas where you can win, and earn, and build trust across the organisation. And then show value early.
“Then, you can use that to fuel the next solution you’re thinking of.
“It’s also about building capability within the organisation … not just the initial build of AI solutions, but how do you maintain that, how do you continue to train the models. It’s not a set and forget thing.
“It’s something that you constantly need to monitor.”
Enverga also encourages leaders and professionals in the space to remain curious.
“Stay curious, keep reading, it changes so fast, and we just need to be open to change and be willing to adapt to where this is going,” she says.
“But be cautious as well about our own responsibility. What we build today will [be a] legacy to the next generation.
“My compass is: am I building something that could potentially have a negative impact on my children?”
Ethics and responsibility
How AI is used and what data it takes has opened up a pandora’s box of ethical questions and concerns.
As lawmakers figure out how to regulate it, Enverga says they should look at reviewing existing legislative frameworks, such as those brought in to govern the internet.
“We should retest some of our policies on emerging technology,” she says.
“There are policies around internet privacy and such that exist today. It’s about looking at where the gaps are in terms of where AI is heading.
“It’s not reinventing the wheels. It’s testing all the governance frameworks that exist already and just filling up the gaps.”
Filling the talent gap
For Enverga, hiring and retaining talent who are willing to learn and adapt is critical in today’s world.
“It’s the adaptability of the individuals because you can come from different backgrounds [and] learn AI,” she says.
“It’s about the people who are really willing to learn and make an impact. I think the question is not how do you find talent, it’s how do you motivate people to actually learn the new things, the new technology, and adapt using their foundation learning?
“How do you leverage that learning and enhance it?”
And on the problem of retaining top talent, she says it’s about giving them a mission they feel aligned with and exciting projects to work on.
“It’s about doing things that are exciting,” she says.
“[It’s] having an opportunity to solve problems that have a strategic organisational impact where they can see the outcomes. It makes you part of a mission and that’s what energises people.”
Opportunities if you’re not from tech
Veness says she fell into AI from an entirely different industry but learned over the years to lead people in the industry.
She’s now been in the game for more than two decades and is among the few women executives in AI.
Her first job was at a gym encouraging members to keep their memberships so the transition into tech came with a steep learning curve.
“It did take a while to get my head around it, and I guess there’s always those people that you meet who have statistics degrees or complex math degrees.
“My background had been sort of science, a bit of maths, and then more of the management side of things.
“And people doubt you.
“But you set your own path, you start learning, you get those wins, and then you keep learning continuously.”
Being the only woman in the room
Throughout her career, Enverga has often been the only woman in the room – and sometimes the only one of Asian background.
While that exposed her to conscious and unconscious bias, she did not let that get in the way of a career she was deeply passionate about.
She now mentors young professionals and says having a professional circle of allies who can support, back and keep you moving forward is immensely powerful.
“I just grabbed opportunities as they came,” she says.
“I’ve encountered many moments where my credibility is questioned, or my contributions are overlooked. Those moments can be subtle, right? So it’s not discriminatory in a way that’s too offensive, but it’s just an accumulation.”
She says these moments have been an important reminder for self-advocacy.
“Be an advocate for yourself,” she says.
“You have to be confident in your own skin and be confident of where you are today in your career and how you got there.
“You may be different, but you got there because you worked hard to get to where you are today. Be confident and don’t let the criticism or discrimination undermine you.”
When Veness first started in this career, she remembers the lengths she would go to try and fit in.
“I was the only female in the room, the only female on the call, the only female on the team for many, many, many years,” she says.
“In one of my early jobs back in the UK, I remember going to buy pinstripe pant suits because I wanted to fit in. But I remember having the realisation a few years after that, going hang on a minute, I don’t need to fit in. I don’t need to look like a man or act like a man. I’ve got a lot of skills.
“The biggest thing is women believing in themselves and having that network around them so that if they do doubt themselves, they’ve got those people going ‘of course, you can do that. Of course, you should put your hand up and learn that.’
“It’s having those people around you, that kind of cheering squad in your corner, not always just saying ‘you’re amazing, you’re the best’ because that wears off quite quickly, but saying, ‘hey, yeah, that other role you did was really similar, or how do you apply those other skills that you’ve already got?’”
Angelica encourages women new to the industry to link up with allies.
“Start learning, start playing,” she says.
“Find those women and those male allies that will help you and guide you on that path. There are so many different avenues, but the majority of jobs impacted by AI will be those traditional jobs done by women. So don’t miss out, don’t get left behind.”
Getting more women in the industry
Both Enverga and Veness say addressing the talent gap requires intentionality and good design from education to recruitment.
“There’s been studies done that girls lose a lot of their self-confidence between the ages of eight and 14,” says Veness.
“Their self-confidence and their self-belief goes down by 30 per cent in those key formative years. So how do we encourage people to tell their daughters to follow their dreams?
“It starts with teachers and schools and so I’ve done a lot of work in the past with Schools Plus.
“How do we go from saying no to AI to saying how?
“Whether it’s government departments, whether it’s corporates, whether it’s schools, everyone’s very quick to say no because they fear it and they don’t understand it.
“How do we as corporations help our community, every generation, every age, understand how to use AI and not to fear it?”
Enverga adds that change must also happen through employment practices.
“It’s always about intentional action [from] diverse hiring panels in your recruitment to inclusive team environments,” she says.
“We need to think about it systematically and be intentional in how we create programs that support diverse talent at companies including consulting firms. I think there are responsibilities around investing in mentorship or sponsorship and community building to actively remove those barriers.”