Siyang Wang is most excited about working with data and AI to bridge the communications gap.

Can you share the most interesting part of your career journey?

Mentorship and leadership have been two central themes throughout my years with Deloitte. The most exciting part is to find myself growing from a protégé to a mentor and to lead with confidence after being influenced by great leaders.

From project to project, I’ve engaged with various teams. Despite the diverse background individuals have, transparency and respect are key to the success of our team. When there are concerns, one clear, fact-based meeting can be more effective than hours of offline discussions.

Despite the diverse background individuals have, transparency and respect are key to the success of our team.

However, it’s also critical to understand the uniqueness of individual team players. Good leaders can strike a delicate balance between project goals and team members’ personal goals. Fortunately, I have been inspired by leaders who can process my asks and questions mindfully while being courageous when stating the big picture and providing feedback.

Thanks to the open firm culture, I gradually fostered a habit of extending my role from the project to a mentoring relationship. Similar to open mentoring, the voluntary nature of the connection successfully promotes candid conversations. It builds a two-way learning experience from my mentors, mentees, team leads, and team members.

The challenges posed by the pandemic and remote working since 2020 only reinforced the importance of effective mentorship and leadership programs. I look forward to exploring the science and art of this topic as I advance in my career.

What excites you most about working with data and AI?

Working with data and AI to bridge the gap excites me the most.

As a consultant, using data as building blocks to support my analyses and create logical and concrete solutions is what I enjoy the most.

We live in a world where numbers are more powerful than ever. The most effective way of communicating in front of different groups relies on quantification. It is true not only in the corporate and economic domain, but also normal in social matters. Therefore, data—accurate and processed—plays a critical role.

As a consultant, using data as building blocks to support my analyses and create logical and concrete solutions is what I enjoy the most.

When defining and solving a problem, data is not necessarily the bottleneck. However, the ability to process data can be. That’s why proper AI technologies create value exponentially by transforming data into actionable insights. This transformation bridges the gap between tons of digital points and knowledge. With AI, data owners will be one step closer to business experts who have years of industry experience.

Describe an interesting project that you have worked on.

I had one of the best project experiences during a conversational AI solution delivery.

I started it as a side project with the sponsor of my project partner. In the beginning, I had only two resources. We did research and development in pretty much a trial-and-error manner.

That’s why proper AI technologies create value exponentially by transforming data into actional insights.

Despite the challenges, we upskilled the team and delivered the prototype in a few months. It impressed the client and successfully convinced the program to dip its toes into this emerging technology field. Internally, the project gained excellent traction from the practice. After a round of funding requests, we initiated a double-sized project to deliver conversational AI solutions to our employees and shape the go-to-market strategy in this domain.

What is impressive about the project is not only the technology implemented or problem solved. It is more about talent and practice development. This experience demonstrated the value of project and talent investment.