Meet Catherine Stretton who holds two roles within the firm, namely: Chief Digital Innovator, and Cognitive Advantage Leader. The two roles are slightly different yet complement each other. In her role as a Chief Digital Innovator, she is tasked with the responsibility to transform delivering services to the market and ensure that they are digitally enabled. This role also put Catherine on the forefront with client to go through digital transformation. As a leader of the cognitive advantage team, she works with a team of full stack developers and machine learning specialists to build innovative products and solutions to solve clients most exciting opportunities and pressing problems. Both her roles are essential for the firm to be successful in the market and to be successful as digital leader in the professional services space.

Catherine loves being technical and that keeps her young and current on how digital technology is revolving and how to use it. Her roles drive her to continuously learn, be creative, be involved in “making things”, creating new ways of working and interacting with clients. These roles are a channel for her inherent creativity that enables her to imagine and dare new things. Like a machine learning algorithm, Catherine can see patterns, she can connect the dots and that is her superpower. Seeing how different things connect to each other and how innovation in one area can be applied in a completely different area is what Catherine sees as her strength, seeing the transposable power of innovation. Catherine does not believe that being a woman is some kind of an impediment to fulfilling a career in AI, she believes that women in AI need to think without boundaries, lead and be part of a movement toward enabling companies with AI. She believes that “You can do what you want; whatever you imagine is possible”. AI is exciting and constantly evolving, and adventure is what you will encounter in this field.

Meet Jania Okwechime, a Partner in Risk Advisory – West Africa and leads teams in Nigeria and Ghana. Three years ago, in 2019, Jania joined Deloitte to build the Data Analytics team. She started with one team member and has since grown the team to its current group of 10 members. An enthusiastic and passionate team is what drives Jania daily. She takes pleasure and always looks forward to mentoring a team of individuals in problem solving and in so doing making an impact together. Coffee in her hand, good jazzy music, and a few minutes to herself is how she starts her day in the office. Creating an environment where everyone is motivated and interacts with each other is what Jania aims to create for her team.

During the time that Jania has been with Deloitte she has built relationships with partners, directors, and managers within the firm while taking to the market offerings in Tax, Auditing and Data Analytics. She has been complemented on her ability to deliver a believable and enjoyable presentation. The greatest most heartwarming feedback she has received is how people feel encouraged and comforted by her empathy, and her ultimate passion – inspiring others. Jania believes in confidence and passion, she encourages women in AI to not be afraid to speak their minds – “If you do not ask the answer will always be a no, whereas if you ask there is always the possibility of a YES”. If you believe in something, gather courage, and ask or better still, explore it.

Meet Vanessa Saker, the Senior Manager in the Risk Advisory Digital Team. Vanessa loves challenges and solving problems, figuring things out is one thing she is passionate about. Her friends and family play a role in her passion, and that is what drives her. Vanessa is a helper – a helpful person, which she believes is her purpose in life because that is how she brings together her problem-solving skills and helps people team together for a common good and outcome. Working within a diverse team that is driven by a single passion is what she loves about her job. Deloitte has 175 years of history in the Audit industry, but is still very new in the AI industry, which gives Vanessa a great platform to do what she most enjoys.

Vanessa doesn’t believe that she is doing anything better than others, but that she has an improved superpower when it comes to people management and calmness. How well she gets to work with people is her greatest strength. She also believes that one cannot fail at being oneself, if there is anything you can do well it is being yourself. Her advice to women in AI is: “… society will tell you where you are below and what you should be doing, ignore the voices, just be yourself”. Do what you need to do in your time, be authentic.