62. Diverse Leadership and AI Ethics: Jocelyn Moore on Transforming Governance

Jocelyn Moore, a seasoned board member and former NFL executive, shares her diverse career experiences from Capitol Hill to the boardrooms of major technology companies like DraftKings and OppFi. Jocelyn discusses the intricate journey that led her to influential roles in corporate governance, emphasizing the importance of diversity in leadership and the ethical implications of AI in decision-making. This episode not only explores Jocelyn’s remarkable career trajectory, but also delves into the broader implications of board composition and technology in modern corporate environments.

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Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes:

What was your NFL experience like?

It was like nothing else that I’ve ever done.  Such a tremendous lesson in the art of diplomacy with varying stakeholders, which has prepared me for a lot of the board service that I do now.

Is bipartisanship in Congress possible?

“I’ll tell you that I think is really emblematic of how I grew up on Capitol Hill. In [Senator] Zell Miller’s office, we had Democrats and Republicans both working in that office – – our political leanings didn’t matter, we were all working for the people of Georgia, and that’s something that really stuck with me during the 15 years that I worked in the Senate.”

Power of the network leading to DraftKings board

“Roberta Sydney, who you will know, and many in the audience will know – she is amazing. I’ve never met Roberta, she and I get on a call. We talked about the board opportunity and this particular board was not a good fit. But you know what Roberta did, because she is such a champion of people, a champion of women, she said, “Look, this may not be a good fit, but I’m going to introduce you to my friend Ilana Wolfe.” Ilana is at Goldman and is the driving force behind board diversification at Goldman’s portfolio companies. 

I talked to Ilana and, little did I know at the time, she was this giant in the space. We talked. I told her about my background, and we left it at that.  After about a month went by, she called me back and said, “Hey, Jocelyn, I have this interesting board opportunity that I wanted to run by you -have you heard of the company DraftKings?””

DraftKings Board Composition as it went Public

Like most public companies before they are public, the board was largely comprised of investors, and I joined soon after it went public in April of 2022. The makeup of the board changed as DraftKings became a public company.

DraftKings’ commitment to inclusion, equity and belonging is very strong. At the same time that I joined the board, Valerie Mosley, a giant in Boston, joined the board, so two black women joined the board of DraftKings at the same time, and Michael Jordan became an advisor.

Importance of a board with diverse perspectives

“Board diversity is not a nice to have. It is a must have.”

“When you think about your customer base, whether it’s DraftKings, OppFi, whatever company we’re talking about, when we look at the makeup of America, it is extraordinarily diverse. When we think about how we create and generate revenue, how we sustain revenue, how we create long-term value, all of those things are dependent upon our customer base. If we do not embrace diversity, we are not maximizing our revenue potential. It is as simple as that.”

Angel Investing

“Entrepreneurs power our economy.  They are the ones who are the job creators in our country, and so to understand business and industry, you really have to go where business and industries are. And so that’s why it was important for me to get involved with venture investing and angel investing to get a front row seat to industry in ways that I could have never imagined.”

From the On Boards Summit 2023: The coming wave of Artificial Intelligence (AI): What questions should boards be asking?

  • How will your company or board be impacted by AI?
  • How can we use AI in the future not only internally to improve processes and the sharing of information and data, but also externally in the markets that we are in to improve the client experience, to extend whatever we are doing from a market standpoint?
  • We know that AI has shown biases. What are the questions that we, as good corporate citizens, need to ask about the ethics of AI?
  • How do we best provide guardrails around AI?

Links

Bio

https://jocelynmmoore.com/#biography

Related Articles

  • What is AI Ethics? – https://www.ibm.com/topics/ai-ethics#:~:text=Examples%20of%20AI%20ethics%20issues,%2C%20trust%2C%20and%20technology%20misuse.
  • Creary, S., Foutty, J., Mitchell, K. (2023, April 3). How Diversity Can Boost Board Effectiveness. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-diversity-can-boost-board-effectiveness/
  • DeLoach, J. (2023, August 22). The Director’s Playbook for Generative AI. National Association of Corporate Directors. https://www.nacdonline.org/all-governance/governance-resources/directorship-magazine/online-exclusives/directors-playbook-for-generative-ai/
  • Pazzanese, C. (2020, October 26). Great Promise but Potential for Peril: Ethical concerns mount as AI takes bigger decision-making role in more industries (Second in a four-part series). The Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/ethical-concerns-mount-as-ai-takes-bigger-decision-making-role/ 
  • Peterson, R., Gardner, K., (2022, September 28). Is Your Board Inclusive — or Just Diverse? Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/09/is-your-board-inclusive-or-just-diverse

Board Diversity Resources

  • Black Women on Boards – https://www.bwob.io/
  • Latino Corporate Directors Association (LCDA) – https://latinocorporatedirectors.org/

Santa Clara University’s Women’s Corporate Board Readiness Program – https://www.scu.edu/wcbr/

Transcript:

Joe: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to On Boards, a deep dive at what drives business success. I’m Joe Ayoub, and I’m here with my co host, Raza Shaikh. Twice a month, On Boards is the place to learn about one of the most critically important aspects of any company or organization, its board of directors or advisors, with a focus on the important issues that are facing boards, company leadership, and stakeholders.

Raza: Joe and I speak with a wide range of guests and talk about what makes a board successful or unsuccessful, what it means to be an effective board member, and how to make your board one of the most valuable assets of your organization.

Joe: Our guest today is Jocelyn Moore. Jocelyn serves on the boards of two publicly-traded companies, DraftKings and OppFi, as well as on the board of Omaze, a [00:01:00] private entertainment and media company disrupting traditional philanthropy. She also serves on the board of Pallas Advisors, a strategic advisory firm specializing in national security, defense and innovation, and she was appointed by President Biden to serve on the board of the First Responder Network Authority, a public-private partnership created after 9/11 to provide a high speed, nationwide wireless broadband network for public safety.

Raza: Previously, Jocelyn was the Executive Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs at the National Football League. She also spent 15 years in the United States Senate as a senior staffer for four US senators.

Joe: Jocelyn is the founder and CEO of Jocelyn Moore Consulting where she advises CEOs, executive teams and boards of directors on a wide variety of [00:02:00] issues, including strategic communications, crisis and risk management, regulatory affairs and corporate social responsibility, among other things. Before I officially welcome Jocelyn, I’d like to thank our friends at Nutter McClennen & Fish, the law firm that sponsored our summit, Summit 2023, uh, on November 1st.

It was a great, great gathering and it was great, Jocelyn, that you were able to be there. It was so great to meet you in person, actually.

Jocelyn: Well, Joe and Raza, it was great to meet you in person and be among so many great directors and aspiring directors, and I’m super excited to join you on today’s podcast. Thanks for having me.

Joe: Thanks so much. Thank you, really. Thank you for joining us today. Let’s start with a little bit of background. Talk a little bit about how you ended up in the role of Global Chief Communications Officer for the NFL

Jocelyn: Oh, my goodness. Well, like much of my [00:03:00] career serendipity, I at that time, and not to say that I hadn’t worked hard because, of course, I have, I became in contact with the NFL in a professional capacity. I was working for a firm called The Glover Park Group, a consulting firm in Washington, one of the top consulting firms, and the NFL was a client.

I would frequently be called in as they had player health and safety issues and other issues before Congress where they needed strategic advice, and so one day after their head of Washington office left, uh, and she was amazing and is still amazing. Um, I got the call from my boss there at Global Park Group about whether or not I would consider the position.

And so to make a very long story short, I, I did consider the position after some conversations with my mom, which I’m happy to say more about. And ended up going to work for the National Football League as their head of Washington office. So [00:04:00] their chief lobbyist, and then from there, the chief communications officer.

Joe: Why your mother and not your father?

Jocelyn: Well, that’s what I said, Joe. Well, because I was trying, and I don’t mean this to be gender specific or anything like that, but in our household, we’re a big football family. I spent time at the University of Florida. That’s my alma mater, go Gator, but we got Bulldogs. We got some Seminoles in there, Georgia Tech, Yellow Jackets, so we don’t really watch football together, but we are a big football family.

My dad is kind of chief among those. He’s all sports, basketball, football, et cetera, so when the opportunity came up, because I was very focused on maintaining work-life balance, which I’m happy to say more about that and what I think about it now, I was very focused on what I thought that was.

I said by calling my mom, she’s going to like do whatever I want to do, which is maintain a life where I’m not on my Blackberry and we still have BlackBerries 24/7, and so that’s why I called her because I thought what she would say was, “Jocelyn, whatever [00:05:00] you want to do, whatever makes you happy, do that.”

Instead, she said, “Well, Jocelyn, I don’t really understand what the problem is. You have an amazing job that you love and you’re going to go interview for this other amazing job. So, if you don’t get the job with the NFL, you still come back to a job that you really love.” And I was like, “Mom, that was not the answer.” But she’s always right, and of course, I did exactly what she advised.

Joe: Fantastic. And your father would have said, go to the NFL.

Jocelyn: Yes. He would have said it like no hesitation. He’s like, “Why are you calling me?”

Joe: It’s funny because our family is very, very sports oriented. If my daughter called me with that question, “Hey dad, I’ll be the chief communications officer for the NBA, “I would say, “When can you get started?”

Jocelyn: I know, yeah. It’s a funny thing with our parents, but yes, my mom is always right. She always has been. She’s the reason I got my first job on Capitol Hill as well, so she’s an amazing, amazing person.

Joe: Before we talk about Capitol Hill, just a quick question about the NFL. Tell us a little about the experience, and is [00:06:00] there a board that does the decision making for the NFL, and who does that comprise of?

Jocelyn: Sure. Well, I’ve been lucky to have a number of pretty amazing experiences over my life. And as I said, a lot of serendipity in terms of being in the right place at the right time, and certainly backing that up with a lot of hard work. The NFL was no different. A lot of hard work at the time that I was there, there were a lot of conversations around player health and safety. There was player activism around social justice issues.

We were in the thick of all of it, certainly from a communication standpoint, which included corporate social responsibility. The social responsibility initiative that the League came up with in partnership with NFL players, I was there for all of that, and including players in those conversations.

It was like nothing else that I’ve ever done. Such a tremendous lesson in the art of diplomacy with varying stakeholders, which has [00:07:00] prepared me for a lot of the board service that I do now.

We have the NFL owners. The team owners are the governing body for the League, and so you have 32 teams, so there are 32 sets of constituencies that really determine the path of the League and meet about all matters of business, both of the short term and the long term for the NFL.

Joe: And I would just say, just based on everything I’ve seen and learned over the years, that 32 is a big board.

Jocelyn: 32 is a big board. Yes, not unlike some of the conversation we were having at the On Board summit about the size of boards and transitioning boards and what that looks like, 32 is certainly a large board.

Joe: Let’s go back and talk a little about your time on the Hill, because I know that that was really quite impactful.

Jocelyn: Yeah, so this is another right place at the right time. I have moved to Washington after college. I did not have a job. I moved to Washington because at the University of Florida, I got [00:08:00] bitten by the political bug and I said, “I’ve got to be in the seat of power. I need to be in Washington, DC.” I don’t really even know what that means, but I have to be there.

I packed everything, drove up to Washington, DC, stayed with my sorority sister and worked at the mall, and an interesting thing happened, Senator Zell Miller got appointed to the Senate. I’m from Georgia originally, and my mom calls and she’s like, “The Governor is being appointed to the Senate,” and that’s what she called him, the Governor, because he was the Governor of our state, very popular Governor who had created the HOPE Scholarship. She called and she’s like, “The Governor is being appointed to the Senate, you have to go work for him.”

I said, “Mom, I couldn’t. No, there’s way more supply than there is demand. What are you talking about? Like I can’t just go and show up and say, ‘Hey, I want a job,'” and she said, “Well, of course you can. You’re Jocelyn, you’re my daughter, and if you want a perfect person for the job, I don’t know who is.” Basically it’s what she said.

Long story short, I [00:09:00] applied because I was from Georgia. I was the first legislative staffer hired, so that’s where I got my start in the Senate, and it was learning at the feet of Zell Miller and you will recall that he became very newsworthy, is how I’ll put it. He had a lot of very interesting viewpoints that were different from his caucus. He was definitely the definition of maverick, and I know that’s been used to describe Senator McCain as well, but Zell Miller was definitely one of a kind and really was there to represent the people of Georgia.

The last thing I’ll tell you that I think is really emblematic of how I grew up on Capitol Hill is in our office, in Zell Miller’s office, we had Democrats and Republicans both working in that office, and we didn’t know it at the time. It would only be later when folks went to work in other offices that we knew, “Hey, here’s your political point of view. Here’s my [00:10:00] political point of view, but the bigger picture point was we were all working for the people of Georgia, it didn’t matter, our political leanings, we were working for the people of Georgia, and that’s something that really stuck with me for the 15 years that I worked in the Senate.

Joe: Wow. Well, two comments. One, again, your mother gives perfect advice.

Jocelyn: He does, right?

Joe: I’d like to get her number in case I need some good advice sometime.

Jocelyn: We’ll work

Joe: thing is, what were you thinking putting Democrats and Republicans in the same room? I thought that wasn’t allowed. I would say this, great for you, great for the senator and his office for doing what is obviously the right thing, and I’ll leave it at that for now. We’ll move on from that. It sounds fantastic.

You’ve been fortunate to sit on a number of pretty interesting boards. Let’s talk about your first board and how that came about, and then we’ll talk a little bit about the board itself.

Jocelyn: That’s a great question, Joe. I never envisioned serving on corporate boards. It wasn’t something [00:11:00] you had a mom who worked for the Department of Defense as an accountant, and my father work for the Department of Transportation here in Georgia. It wasn’t something that was really in my purview. The way that it came about after I left the NFL, I was in the venture capital space and I was a venture partner at a firm called Ozone X, and one of the founding partners, a woman, she reached out to me one day and said, “Hey, I have this friend who is looking for a board member, and I thought that you would be a good person for her to talk to.”

I didn’t know the friend. I get on the phone. It’s Roberta Sydney, who you will know, and many in the audience will know, and she is amazing. I’ve never met Roberta. Roberta and I get on the call. We talked about the board opportunity and this particular board was not a good fit. But you know what Roberta did, because she is such a champion of people, a champion of women, she said, “Look, this [00:12:00]may not be a good fit, but I’m going to introduce you to my friend Ilana Wolfe, who you all know, Ilana is at Goldman. She really is the driving force behind all of the board diversification at Goldman’s portfolio companies.

I talked to Ilana, and little did I know, she was this giant in the space. We talked. I told her all about my background, and we left it at that, and a month went by, and she calls me back and says, “Hey, Jocelyn, I have this interesting board opportunity that wanted to run by you.” She says, “Have you heard of the company DraftKings?” And I laughed and I’m like, “Wait, Ilana, is this a joke? Of course I’ve heard of DraftKings. Not only have I heard of them, I worked with them at the NFL. I’ve met the CEO,” and the rest, as they say, is history. It is quite the journey on the DraftKings board. Something that I have just. thoroughly enjoyed and learn from.

Joe: Talk a little bit about the board. How big is it? What does [00:13:00] it look like? And how is the governance on the month-to-month kind of basis

Jocelyn: Sure. Like most public companies before they are public, the board is largely comprised of investors, and so DraftKings just went public in April of 2022, and I joined shortly thereafter. The makeup of the board changed as DraftKings became a public company.

One that I want to really stress is DraftKings’ commitment to inclusion, equity and belonging, so at the same time that I joined the board, Valerie Mosley, also a giant there in Boston, she joined the board, so two black women joined the board of DraftKings at the same time, and Michael Jordan became an advisor.

The reason that’s important is because we still are not where we need to be in terms of board diversity. Not only are the founders and the CEO, Jason Robins, very intentional, they are focused on a daily basis on making [00:14:00] sure that DraftKings represents not only our country, but our customer base.

It’s a pretty active board. We have in the double digit number of members and folks are from a variety of backgrounds; finance, corporate affairs, venture capital, the list goes on and on, and it is a really good group to sit among and really learn from as we advise this high-growth technology company.

Joe: Who chairs the board?

Jocelyn: Harry Sloan. Harry Sloan. He’s a multi-hyphenate. His background is in Hollywood. He’s done a lot on the production side, but he’s also an investor and he’s been very successful across a number of businesses, so it’d really be hard to define Harry Sloan. He is a type of industry is how I would describe him.

Joe: Wow, fantastic.

Jocelyn: He’s amazing. I would just say to the audience, google Harry Sloan, and it doesn’t begin to describe all of the different ways, [00:15:00] all the fingerprints on where he has been involved so he is a titan of industry, and we’re lucky that he is the chairman of our board.

Joe: Yeah. The amazing comment was the route to getting onto this first board and the board you ended up joining as your first board, that’s amazing because what a great experience, especially people who are really focused on board composition. Not every company is, public companies, private companies, it’s all over the place, so what a great way to start your board career.

I guess the other thing is the way most people get on boards is by talking to people they know, and good for you, and of course, great that Roberta and so many others are so active in trying to help others find their first board, their second board, et cetera, so I think that’s great story.

Jocelyn: Yeah, I can take no credit for it, Joe. It really is Roberta and being just a fisher of [00:16:00]people and women and making sure that she is extending her hand at every turn and providing opportunity for those that stand alongside her and come behind her. She is amazing. So, is Ilana. But Jason Robins had to be intentional and he was, and he is every bit the type of leader that we should have at DraftKings, and just the type of leader to really emulate across industry.

Joe: Great. Thanks.

Raza: Speaking of DraftKings, I know that Angels in Boston originally funded the company, some of my colleagues here, but you also have been angel investing. Talk a little bit about that, and you mentioned the venture partner role as well. You’ve been in the startup world for a little bit. Say a little more.

Jocelyn: Yes, for me, coming from a public policy background and really wanting to understand, I always had a view of industry. Working on health policy, working on mind [00:17:00] safety, working on taxes, trade, there was always a view of industry, but it was from the government out, and I really wanted to understand business and industry really from a ground up perspective.

The best way to do that is working in the ecosystem of entrepreneurs. They power our economy. They are the ones who are the job creators in our country, and so to understand business and industry, you really have to go where business and industries are. And so that’s why it was important for me to get involved with venture investing and angel investing to get a front row seat to industry in ways that I could have never imagined.

When I think about moving from Gainesville, Florida to Washington, DC, it was that same notion of “I need to be at the seat of the action, I really need to understand it from the ground up,” and so it has been quite the education in terms of knowing from an entrepreneurial lens.

During COVID, let’s just be clear, [00:18:00] when entrepreneurs and boards were having to really figure out a new world order, it really has helped me in terms of how I navigate the world of finance, the world of entertainment and media, and the world of industry generally.

Raza: I think the front row seat metaphor is so apt, and then I think you mentioned that job creation. A lot of new jobs in the economy are created through new business creation and startups and angel investing is the fuel for that engine of job growth. I heard earlier when we spoke, you also invest in Broadway shows and plays

Jocelyn: Oh my goodness, yes. Talk about that connective tissue of boards, this opportunity to invest in Broadway came about because of my board service at DraftKings, so it was a connection made there. They’re one of my fellow board members. I don’t want to put them on the spot because they like to really remain behind the scenes, but [00:19:00] it was a connection made there.

I said one day something, “I really wanted to invest in Broadway. I haven’t been able to really figure out how to do it,” and lo and behold, someone approached me and said, “Hey, I’m producing this play, would you like to produce it with me?” And the gentleman’s name is Scott Delman, who is my producing partner. He’s won 13 Tony Awards.

Again, talk about parachuting in and having a seat at the table, it’s all of these, again, serendipitous moments where I have the opportunity and I’m always one, once the opportunity is given, I’m going to run through that door.

Joe: What’s the name of the show that you’re co producing?

Jocelyn: I co-produced The Piano Lesson starring Samuel L. Jackson on David Rockefeller with Danielle Brooks and a bunch of other amazing actors and actresses. So, it won a number of awards. I’m super proud of the experience and just bringing that [00:20:00] August Wilson play to life and Sam Jackson started in the initial Broadway production of The Piano Lesson 30 years ago. This was a revival and his wife, Tanya Jackson, directed it.

Again, it’s like serendipitous moments where just those connective points, which is why it is so important that we have that board diversity continue to be at the forefront because the conversations that happen, the connectivity that happens, the opportunities that had I not been on this board, I probably would never have had, that’s the stuff. Those are the moments in life that really are transformative.

Joe: Yeah. The secret sauce of a great board is diversity; diversity of perspective and everything else, because otherwise you’re not getting the strength that can come from the group, whether it’s a jury, whatever it is. The wisdom of the collective depends on who’s in the collective, [00:21:00] and so Raza and I have talked about this since we started this podcast. I could not agree more. It is the single most important thing.

Jocelyn: I can riff off that a little bit, and I know we’re maybe going off topic, but I want to say I had a conversation about this recently. Board diversity is not a nice to have. It is a must have. When you think about your customer base, whether it’s DraftKings, OppFi, whatever company we’re talking about, when we look at the makeup of America, it is extraordinarily diverse. When we think about how we create and generate revenue, how we sustain revenue, how we create long-term value, all of those things are dependent upon our customer base. If we do not embrace diversity, we are not maximizing our revenue potential. It is as simple as that.

The last point I would make, my mom always says that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. I would [00:22:00] venture to say that it is a bit insane to have the same people sitting around the board table who look like you, who have the same experiences and continuously doing that over and over and over again is not good for the bottom line. It isn’t.

When we think about sustainability over time, we cannot argue that a board that is homogenous is going to lead to the long-term revenue growth and sustainability that every single company is after.

Joe: Amen.

Raza: one other organization to highlight is Pipeline Angels. Can you talk a little bit about that? How is that investing in mostly tech companies, but talk about how you’re investing through that organization.

Jocelyn: Sure, Pipeline Angels, and we recently had a merger event, and so Pipeline Angels is going on to bigger and better things. That organization for diverse women [00:23:00] across the board and diversity in every sense of the word, really getting a foothold. It’s a little bit beyond just kind of having a seat at the table. It’s understanding due diligence. It’s soup to nuts evaluation of a company, not only short-term growth, but long-term value potential.

That is something that I wish I learned that in school. I wish I was taught that in elementary school and college, because that is a transferable skill. Due diligence is a transferable skill. Knowing how to conduct due diligence, which is what I learned through Pipeline Angels, and you don’t just learn surface. Due diligence, as I said, you learn very detailed due diligence around startup companies, their ecosystem and future potential.

I have invested in a number of companies through Pipeline Angels. I will be reinvesting through Pipeline Angels and it’s across sectors; healthcare, entertainment and media, you name it. Whatever they bring to the table, I’m all [00:24:00] ears because they are so good about investing in diverse founders and companies.

Raza: The diligence point is such a key point. I run the Angel Capital Association’s due diligence workshop. I teach it for Launchpad members and at many other places, including the enterprise forum and that model of why something is investable and that it has so many aspects to it and it applies so generally to many things in life is such a valuable point that you bring up.

Jocelyn: Raza, can I just pull that thread a little bit? I would add that in my board service, when we’re thinking about M&A opportunities, that due diligence that I learned from Pipeline Angels, it is the same, and I know how to evaluate those opportunities because I was able to participate as a pipeline angel, so that connective tissue, that thread, and I would say to the audience, you may think that, [00:25:00]”Wow, why are we talking about due diligence over here and angel investing?” Because it’s the same skill set when you’re evaluating a potential merger or acquisition in the boardroom.

Raza: Jocelyn, you also serve on a few other boards. Talk about the other boards that you’re serving on, what are those organizations and their boards.

Jocelyn: Sure. You asked me previously about my first board at DraftKings, which again has been tremendous, what I have learned in my very short board tenure is about cultivating board service, and I have had the great honor of being able to cultivate some pretty amazing boards, both in the public sector and the private sector, so OppFi really transforming access to credit for the non-banked and under-banked, which is critical. I could go on and on about the great work we’re doing in markets across the country to make sure that people can participate in our financial system who are locked out [00:26:00]through a variety of other opportunities and means,, so that’s a tremendous board. It’s a different board because it’s a closely held company, but also a public company.

I’m the lead director there, so that experience has been quite instructive in terms of how I approach my other board service. Additionally, I’m on the board of Omaze, which if you think about HGTV and real estate is one of my passions, we auction off houses primarily in London at this point, and people bid on those houses for charity. We have really disrupted the traditional philanthropic model by bringing in larger donors, a larger donor base, and being able to contribute a significant amount to charity.

Then lastly, the first responder board, which is a quasi-governmental board. This is another pull through. I started working for Senator Rockefeller, I think four years into my Senate career. I worked for him for nine years. And after 9 11 [00:27:00] happened, one of the things that he said is never again would first responders not have the ability to communicate seamlessly through buildings and across landmass, and so the First Responder Network was created to ensure that first responders and our public safety officers can have a unified communication system that is wireless, that is the latest technology, the list goes on and on. I could speak about any one of those boards for forever. They are all very meaningful, and really when I leave this world, I want to be able to say that I drove impact and I feel like all of those boards are doing just that.

Raza: What a terrific set of very different but very impactful organizations that you’re helping on the board. Jocelyn, I want to switch to another topic, which is this coming wave of AI and what boards should be looking for. At the On Board summit, we [00:28:00] posed these questions to the group, and the questions were, what are the key questions board should be asking about AI to senior management? And then from those questions, what actions should they lead to? You participated in that exercise and I think it was a terrific experience. Maybe talk about the few things that came out of that collective understanding about these two questions.

Jocelyn: Absolutely. I think one consensus piece that’s kind of elemental is an assessment of how your company or board will be impacted by AI. And so I think from around the room, AI is kind of ubiquitous at this point. It’s on all the covers of magazines, everyone is talking about it, and that fervor around AI might lead some to say, “Wow, my company is going to be impacted 1,000 percent in [00:29:00] every aspect of the company.”

Well, that is not the case for every company, and so what we talked about at the On Board summit was this idea of an assessment, so having the executive leadership team really assess how is AI being used today, if at all. How can we use it in the future not only internally to improve processes and the sharing of information and data, but also how can we use it externally in the markets that we are in to improve the client experience, to extend whatever we are doing from a market standpoint.

Those are just three of the component pieces of an assessment, but I think there was a lot of consensus around first we have to know how is AI even going to impact the company. Is it a big impact or is it a small impact? And then from there, determine what else is needed. If you’re saying a huge market impact from AI, is the company prepared for that [00:30:00] from an infrastructure standpoint. From a client facing standpoint? If not, what needs to happen? And what are the steps that will be taken to make sure the company is ready for that impact? If the impact is a little bit smaller but will grow over time, then how is the company getting ready for that? What are the things that need to change internally and externally to get ready for that impact?

The other thing that we talked a lot about, and you know I’m passionate about this, is what are the questions that we should be asking regardless of impact on the company? What are the questions as good corporate citizens that we should be asking about the ethics of AI? If we think about AI, we know that there are biases that exist in AI, and I give the example, I believe, it was an Apple card where the husband and wife both applied. The wife was denied, and the husband, not only was he approved, he was approved for like 20 times the amount. Looking at that, we know that there’s some intrinsic bias [00:31:00] in AI, so how are we thinking about that? How are we going to address it and make sure that where we use AI, we are doing it from a responsible and ethical standpoint?

Raza: Quite a lot of things in AI also depend on the training data. Our AI today is trained on the garbage in, garbage out, or whatever our human biases have been, and that have crept into it. It’s kind of like teaching a child as they grow, “Hey, we don’t say that,” and providing guardrails to AI that the technology needs to come to, and I think the governance ultimately provides some of those things and guardrails for our companies, our organization that we help manage. I think there was a good consensus that we need some sort of a chief AI officer for organizations, [00:32:00] and I have kind of this split view about it saying we don’t usually say a chief electricity officer is needed but this technology just happens to be progressing so fast, the part of it is that we as board members don’t know what it is, and maybe the chief AI officer is a role that helps educate, figure out and a point of responsibility in the organization for all issues around AI. But then you also don’t want, as one of our guests coming up in an episode said, that you don’t want a board of one, that you only look at the AI expert and do what they tell you.

Joe: It’s not putting all the responsibility on that person. It’s just to make sure that someone is taking responsibility. You have a CFO. It doesn’t mean the CFO is the only person looking at the books. AI is so big, and as you said, moving so [00:33:00] fast, if no one is responsible, then no one is responsible.

Jocelyn: Yeah, I think the benefit of the conversation that we had was there were a lot of great ideas around AI, and Raza, the slide that you put up that showed kind of all of the different types of AI, of course, we’re focused on generative AI right now, but AI has been in our lives and will be in our lives, and so I think what we have to resist is the urge to have a knee jerk reaction and overdo it, if that makes sense, because I think just like, this is the example that I give, just like with climate change, every organization has to decide how they are going to impact climate change. Everybody has not at the same level, just based on type of business and what your business is doing, and so I think the same is true with AI.

I think there’s a role for trade associations to play, the administration and government is obviously talking about AI, but I think we’re going to have to have a lot of [00:34:00] different Layers to this to the point that you and Joe are both making, it’s moving so quickly and the rules of the road are being formed whether we think of them that way or not.

What I worry about is that we’re going to retrofit because it’s moved so quickly that we missed the boat, and we’re retrofitting policies and procedures and that governance is retrofitted, and so I think the call to action for anyone, including this audience, is to be as proactive as possible first, starting with the assessment and knowing how your businesses are impacted, taking action based on that and leading with governance so that we’re not having to retrofit after the fact, and that we move forward because AI presents a tremendous opportunity across industries to do a lot of amazing things, but we also have to make sure that some of the challenges of AI don’t overtake us.

Joe: Well, Jocelyn, it’s been a great [00:35:00] conversation. Thanks so much for joining us today

Jocelyn: Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Raza. This has been really awesome, and I’m so excited about what you all are doing to highlight folks like me and others who are participating on boards. Thank you.

Joe: And I thank all of you for listening to On Boards with our guest, Jocelyn Moore.

Raza: Please visit our website at OnBoardsPodcast.com. That’s OnOnBoardsPodcast.com. We’d love to hear your comments, suggestions, and feedback, and if you’re not already a subscriber, please be sure to subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and remember to leave us a five-star review.

Joe: Please stay safe and take care of yourselves, your families, and your communities as best you can. And we hope you’ll tune in for the next episode of On Boards. Thanks.