Entrepreneurs, Leverage Your Ecosystem! - with Paul Silva of Valley Venture Mentors
Release Date: 12/22/2013
The AI in Business Podcast
In this episode, Pavlé Sabic, Senior Director in Generative AI Solutions and Strategy at Moody’s, joins Emerj Editorial Director Matthew DeMello to discuss how agentic AI is redefining workflows in financial institutions. Pavlé explains why large enterprises are turning to AI-driven automation to overcome persistent challenges — from fragmented data and manual inefficiencies to evolving regulatory demands. He shares practical examples, including credit memo automation that reduces production time by 60%, portfolio monitoring tools that detect emerging risks earlier, and sales...
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In this episode of the AI in Business podcast, host and Emerj Editorial Director Matthew DeMello speaks with Yunke Xiang, Global Head of Data Science for Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Quality at Sanofi. Together, they examine how generative AI and reasoning models are evolving from simple automation to high-impact copilots across pharmaceutical operations. Yunke shares examples of how AI is enabling “talk to your data” use cases, automating regulatory reporting, and accelerating knowledge transfer for new employees. He also highlights how agentic AI systems may soon extend beyond...
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The ‘AI in Business’ podcast connects enterprise leaders with the best insights on how AI is driving measurable impact across regulated industries. In this episode, we highlight Prudential Financial’s perspective on scaling AI in customer experience, an area facing both significant opportunity and unique regulatory challenges. By featuring Abhii Parakh, VP and Head of Customer Experience at Prudential Financial, this episode links directly into ongoing conversations with financial services leaders about digital transformation, customer trust, and the rise of agentic AI. Listeners will...
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As AI adoption accelerates in financial services, governance leaders face the challenge of keeping oversight processes aligned with innovation. OneTrust provides data governance and risk management tools, serving over 14,000 customers worldwide across privacy, security, third-party, and AI domains. Traditional data governance models, often designed for structured databases, are not built to manage today’s dynamic, unstructured AI workflows. Without clear frameworks, organizations risk compliance gaps, inconsistent oversight, and even internal conflict over ownership of AI decision-making. In...
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Banks face some of the highest stakes when it comes to IT reliability. Even small disruptions can ripple into regulatory exposure, reputational harm, and major financial losses. Yet many financial institutions still rely on reactive monitoring systems that chase alerts without addressing the root causes of outages. On today’s episode of the ‘AI in Business’ podcast, Dale Skeen, CTO and Co-founder of Vitria Technology, explains how AI and agentic systems are reshaping IT operations in financial services. Vitria Technology is a global leader in AI-driven operations platforms, helping...
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As enterprises scale their AI initiatives, leaders face mounting challenges in balancing compute demands, sustainability goals, and hybrid cloud strategies. Many organizations rush to secure GPUs and cloud resources without accounting for hidden costs, data bottlenecks, and sustainability trade-offs. In this episode of the AI in Business podcast, Emerj Editorial Director Matthew DeMello speaks with Jason Hardy, Chief Technology Officer of AI at Hitachi Vantara, about the realities of scaling AI infrastructure at the enterprise level. Want to share your AI adoption story with executive peers?...
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As universities and enterprises both turn to large-scale digital learning, the challenges of scaling education look remarkably similar across sectors. From managing data pipelines to ensuring learners feel a sense of connection, success depends on more than just technology. In this Pure Storage-sponsored episode of the ‘AI in Business’ podcast from Emerj, Norma Scagnoli, Chief Learning and Innovation Officer at the Illinois Institute of Technology, discusses how higher education institutions are navigating cultural resistance, accreditation hurdles, and governance demands while scaling...
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The consumer goods and retail industries face an overwhelming challenge: too much fragmented data and too little clarity. From mismatched retailer reports to legacy systems that can’t keep up with today’s SKU volumes, many organizations find themselves bogged down in “data indigestion” instead of actionable insights. Today’s guest is Henrique Wakil Moyses, Vice President of Data Science at Crisp. Crisp is a data platform designed for the consumer goods ecosystem, helping brands, retailers, and distributors harmonize fragmented data from multiple sources. By providing real-time...
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As AI capabilities evolve, financial institutions face pressure to balance innovation with security, trust, and regulatory compliance. From fraud prevention to customer experience, deterministic AI applications continue to form the backbone of financial services—even as new technologies like generative and agentic AI emerge. In this episode, JoAnn Stonier, Data and AI Fellow at Mastercard, joins us to share how Mastercard is navigating these dynamics. She explains how AI-driven analytics reduce false positives in fraud detection, why “agent-ish” AI marks an important transition toward...
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What if the real AI revolution isn’t in the models — but in the reimagined systems beneath them? In this episode, Deborah Golden, U.S. Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte, joins Emerj CEO and Head of Research Daniel Faggella to rethink what powers (or derails) AI at scale. The conversation challenges conventional wisdom – proposing that the future of AI may hinge less on algorithms and more on the invisible infrastructure that surrounds them. Golden surfaces the hidden risks of silo systems, unchecked shadow AI, and the all-too-common “speed trap” mindset – making a bold case that...
info_outlinePaul Silva started as an entrepreneur with a crazy idea: "What if we could create video games for blind people?" As you can imagine, getting the attention of investors wasn't easy, but despite a limited market and an admittedly off-the-wall concept, Paul made it work, and swiftly got involved in the limited (but earnest) startup scene of Western Massachusetts. He now runs a maker space (ClickSpace), manages a mentorship group for new startups and startup investors (Valley Venture Mentors), and continues to keep the plates spinning to get all aspects of his area's startup ecosystem flourishing.
In this interview, Paul shares some insights on what startup founders and startup teams can do to get access to capitol and expertise within their ecosystem, as well as the lesser-known ways of tapping into the expertise already around them.
For More Information, Visit the HUB of Startups / Business in Emerging Technology. From Robotic Limbs to Getting Angel Investment, from Biotech to Intellectual Property:
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