Meet Gareth Kennedy

So, tell us about a day in the life …

My day begins with a ride into the office, and as soon as I arrive I go straight into grabbing a coffee. I usually prefer to start my meetings with a warm cup, which means this drink is the first of many throughout my day! I’m originally from Melbourne so this is where my love for coffee started.

During the day I split my time between meetings, coding and brainstorming sessions, often involving a whiteboard with a ton of messy diagrams. I work with a variety of clients from start-ups to universities, large enterprises to government officials, from around the globe. We collaborate together to develop strategies using cloud platforms to centralise their data, build insightful models and transform their organisations into truly data-driven businesses.

In my spare time, I also love painting (I use oils). I particularly enjoy painting sceneries in nature that encapsulate what it feels like to be there in the moment.

From your perspective, how does Cloud help our clients unlock business benefits?

Cloud platforms are an amazing tool that make it easy for organisations to leverage the most value out of their data and develop innovative systems to help maximise and improve their business.

We’ve seen this happen in financial services and insurance in particular, where having access to valuable customers insights is only made possible by implementing quality, cloud-based data sets. Utilising cloud lowers the complexity for building and governing central data sources and enables the creation of models that produce actionable insights. This data acts as a central source of truth to help companies execute highly informed and impactful activations.

But of course, with great power comes great responsibility! Our mission is to work with clients to ensure that regulatory compliance and AI ethical principles are baked into this process. One of our insurance clients has made great progress in this regard by setting a rule that all models must pass several fairness checks before they go live. Implementing new regulations like this will allow organisations to make more intelligent, ethical decisions that will positively affect their customers and the greater public.

Why do you love your job?

Ever since my days as a scientist and now as a data and AI director, I’ve always loved strategising new solutions and ideas to solve complex issues.

Deloitte has a bunch of amazing talent and perspectives in the data and AI space. I am passionate about making AI ethics and regulations an integral part of all data and AI practices.

My team and I are currently using cloud platforms to help simplify these regulations for our clients and apply them to their business. I most enjoy working with clients to tackle intricate, tricky problems which require deep thinking as well as advanced technical skills to find the best solution.

Some quickfire favourites

• Fun fact - I had a PhD student who just completed his thesis on ‘Applying AI in Electrochemistry’. I am also affiliated with the gravitational wave community from my days as an astrophysicist. 
• Favourite book - Foundation by Isaac Asimov (a science fiction novel everyone needs to read). 
• Favourite sports team - FC Barcelona (I lived in Barcelona from 2008 to 2010 when they won every game by always playing with attacking flair!)