We at Oloop are extremely excited to announce the launch of our official podcast called “In the Loop.” For our inaugural episode, we’re joined by Purvee Kondal, a leading procurement and AI governance expert, in an honest, insightful, and sweeping conversation on the ethical applications of AI in business. Our show is not packed with the usual list of soft ball topics and standard talking points. We delve into the challenges and opportunities that deeply affect the workforce solutions of today’s businesses, from procurement to HR, staffing, technology, ethics, equality, inclusion, and much more.
AI Governance
There’s no shortage of buzz around AI and diversity, but does the industry really delve into all the issues at stake? Well we do. You’ll find that being “in the loop” exposes you to ideas and discussions that some organizations may shy away from. But more than that, we’re inviting experts into the fold who are eager to present real-world solutions and perspectives, not just a recap of themes we’ve all heard a thousand times before. And we’re thrilled to dig into these topics. For the first part of the series, we’re going to tackle some of the underrepresented aspects surrounding AI in procurement.
With Purvee Kondal as our first guest, we examine the pros and cons of AI, but not as a shiny new toy or some wondrous panacea that will suddenly cure all the ills that procurement and HR leaders confront. Purvee focuses on the importance of governance—of how we’re teaching AI and using it, and perhaps even where we’re in danger of going in the wrong direction with it.
Topic Highlights by Time
In this podcast, which runs a few minutes shy of an hour, we cover a lot of ground in a dialog that’s sometimes edgy, sometimes unexpected, sometimes irreverent, and sometimes humorous—but always thoughtful, forward-looking, and informative.
- 00:00 to 8:00 - Introduction to AI: How it works, moving beyond the idea of chatbots, and how AI can expand the way we make decisions and guide our business innovations.
- 8:00 to 10:00 - Overview of Ethics and Governance: The rules and evolving rules of AI, challenges in machine learning models and inputs, accepting that we don’t know what we don’t know, and establishing a path of best practices moving forward.
- 10:00 to 18:00 - Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: The tremendous challenges of racial, gender, and other biases infecting AI.
- 18:00 to 22:00 - Executive and Board Oversight: Discussing the need for accountability, inclusive leadership, diverse governance, rules that prevent bias, and concentrating on teaching machines appropriately.
- 22:00 to 27:00 - Putting up the Guardrails: Establishing proven frameworks, evolving those foundations, choosing the right data sources, properly vetting the data, and developing governance practices to continue the positive growth of AI processes.
- 27:00 to 36:00 - The Transformative Power of AI in Leadership and Procurement: Making more informed and inclusive decisions, creating a healthy level of friction to prevent the normalization of inequality or self-serving motives, and the power to dramatically improve supplier diversity, selection, and partnership processes in procurement.
- 36:00 to 40:00 - The Importance of HR and Procurement in AI-led Processes: Improving supplier engagement, performance, risk mitigation, and consultative relationships; the holistic and long-term benefits of expanding AI to wider areas of the procurement organization.
- 40:00 to 50:00 - Best Practices for Rolling Out and Rolling Ahead: Selecting, implementing, developing, maturing, and growing AI within the organization; improving worker and supplier advocacy; and bringing those perspectives as data inputs into the procurement organization.
- 50:00 to 57:00 - Optimism and Hope: A positive and genuinely hopeful exploration of how ethical and well-governed AI can help leaders build better companies that better support their customers, talent, suppliers, and communities.
Get to Know Purvee Kondal
Purvee is a procurement executive who focuses on transforming the procurement and vendor management capabilities of companies across multiple sectors. Throughout her career, she’s specialized in helping organizations achieve a lot of firsts in terms of optimizing their workforce solutions, including how to outsource and offshore talent properly, how to move business and capability models, and how to shift procurement from a transactional mindset to a strategic one.
Over the past couple of years, she’s been a Senior Leader at Globality, which is a platform company focused on enhancing the sourcing process using AI. She’s also a lead advisory board member at RampRate and is preparing to join a $60B year company to head their Technology sourcing practice. Clearly, she brings a wealth of hands-on experience and insight that gives her a unique perspective on how AI actually functions in the procurement space.
Stay In the Loop
This podcast is our first but certainly not our last. Don’t miss out. Stay in the loop. And if you’ve got a perspective on how to improve the industry, let's talk. You can always stream episodes of In the Loop on our main website or subscribe through iTunes and Google. Also feel free to check out these other options if you prefer:
Photo by israel palacio on Unsplash
