How CTO Allegra Driscoll is thinking about a future with Generative AI

I would love to start broad, tell me a little bit about who you are, how you came to be where you are now, and specifically, where/ when did your passion for technology start? 

I live in New York City with my husband, whom I met in high school, and my three little ones, ages four, seven, and ten. I grew up in Chicago and moved here for undergrad with a plan to major in psychology and counsel troubled teens. I took a Computer Science 101 class and from the first “Hello World,” I was hooked. I switched my psych major to a minor and moved into computer science with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence, before it was as cool as it is now. 

On the professional side, I spent nine years at Goldman Sachs, nine years at Credit Suisse, four years at Amex and joined Bread Financial as Chief Technology Officer in January of this year. I’ve made a lot of pivots through my career. My first job at Goldman as a developer was on the trading floor working in the risk department. At Credit Suisse I held engineering and product roles as well as ran a servicing organization. At Amex, I held unit CIO and strategy and transformation roles. I’ve been really fortunate that over the years a lot of people took a risk on me and pushed me to try new things. Each of those roles has given me perspective on what I do and don’t like and made the job of CTO achievable. I have learned how to build empathy with different people because I’ve done pieces and parts of their job over the years.

I’ve always had a strong opinion about keeping my engineering job when I stepped into non-tech positions. When I led operations, strategy, or transformation efforts, I held onto the technical aspect of my job because I felt it was important. It can be easy to be directed out of technical jobs but the reason I moved out of psychology and into computer science was because I really loved software engineering. Even as I’ve developed professionally, I've stayed close to it over the years.

You got your computer science degree at an all-women's college. Did that experience impact your career as a woman in tech at all? 

As it turns out, it was the perfect training ground for going into technology in banking. There were not a lot of women at my college who were interested in computer science just as there are far fewer women than men in tech or in banking, and even less in tech in banking. This experience has given me a real focus over the years that we can do better. There are women that I know would have been interested in computer science and would have excelled in technology jobs but didn’t choose that path. It has definitely influenced how much I focus on introducing more women and girls to tech and STEM. 

What advice would you give to somebody just starting out a career in technology? 

My advice to someone just starting out in tech is pretty much the same advice I'd give to anyone just starting out. Take the time to pick your head up and get to know the people around you. It is so important to build and maintain relationships because oftentimes, you’re not in the room when opportunities are being discussed. If other people understand what you’re good at, what you’re capable of, and where your ambitions lie, more opportunities will present themselves. When you do that, you are going to be asked to sometimes take a left turn. It may not be immediately obvious why that move might be a good fit, but you should be willing to take that risk. It doesn't need to be your new job for life, but being open to different roles and different paths is great for learning. I have learned a lot and had fun zigzagging around throughout my career. My last piece of advice is to pay it forward. When you do get that tap, that new opportunity, make sure you’re giving the people below you and your peers your time and support.

What do you think needs to happen to get more women and underrepresented groups to technology leadership like yourself? 

It’s important to have a diverse talent pool from which to choose your candidates – those who have different skills sets, experiences, expertise, thought processes, and perspectives, in addition to what is traditionally defined as “diverse.” I have some very practical strategies I try to follow that I find produce better than average results. The first is, if you’re hiring, and you’re looking at a pipeline of talent and that pipeline is not diverse, stop. Don’t progress, ask again, push harder, and consider whether or not you’ve been too narrow in your focus. It’s really not possible to have any job that only one sort of individual will work for. If you have a full pipeline of candidates and everyone in the pipeline has the same experiences or expertise, then try again. My second tip is wherever possible, don’t hire for one job at a time. Try to hire a few people at once. There is a great study about kindergarteners that if you ask them every day, “what do you want today for a snack”, they will say the same thing every time. If you zoom out, and you give them the month's calendar and you say, “let’s fill in the snack calendar,” they will not fill in every day with the same snack. They’ll naturally bring in more variety. Hiring for multiple roles at once helps you hire different kinds of people. It allows you to take a step back, ensure your pipeline is diverse, and make sure you’re looking at what your team needs overall as you hire. 

What kind of work are you doing right now? What are the main emerging areas you’re seeing at the intersection of technology and financial services? 

We are spending a lot of time on digital experiences. Our vision is to deliver simple, omnichannel experiences for our customers and the customers of our partners. It’s straightforward to say but complicated to do well. We also have a unique product set, from proprietary credit cards to private label credit cards, co-branded credit cards, savings and pay-over-time options. We’re constantly looking at ways in which we can bring these products together in a cohesive way. Lastly, we’re leveraging Generative AI. Because we’re a bank, we’re thinking about the new level of risk that Generative AI can present beyond those associated with traditional predictive AI models that we've been safely and effectively using for a long time. We’re exploring a few different use cases to see where Generative AI is best implemented.

How is the influx of Generative AI changing financial services? What opportunities and risks do you see? 

There are a lot of opportunities. I see big potential around data summarization, whether that’s summarizing emails, meeting notes or knowledge management. Often, information and content insights are scattered around and it’s hard to be on call with a customer who has a question and you’re desperately trying to find the answer at the moment. I see potential for Generative AI to improve these kinds of interactions. Second, there is opportunity in content creation, specifically in code generation. Generally, it is best at things like unit test coverage or documentation. It’s not quite there in generating functional code that doesn’t have security bugs, but models are growing and there are lots of interesting things there.

How do you hire? What do you look for in people? 

The first thing I look for in people is curiosity. The second is open mindedness to change, explore new paths, and provide new ideas. I often move people a half step to the right in the leadership structure because I think it’s great to keep parts of what you know but also bring fresh eyes to our business problems. I look for people who have that growth mindset and are willing to take on new challenges. Lastly, I look for people who are collaborative. Tech is a team sport, so I try to make sure that everyone we’re adding on the team is going to bring new perspectives and new dimensions to the team overall and work well with others.

What is something you’re hopeful about right now?

I’m hopeful about more women in STEM. I look at my four-year-old, she’s got two older brothers, and they all love to build, they love engineering, and she is just as capable, just as talented, and just as excited about these things as the boys. I want to see her and all little girls grow into women who are excited about tech and engineering and are empowered to go into this really cool, fast-moving space.