Bjorn Austraat brings more than two decades of diverse experience in taking complex business problems and finding pragmatic, profitable solutions to them through machine learning, AI, and other technologies. He is an award-winning & industry-recognized transformational applied AI and innovation leader with demonstrated success in $10M to $95B global businesses.
Most recently, he served as SVP and Head of AI Acceleration at Truist, where he was responsible for leading the AI & Analytics Accelerator (A3) to fuel innovation and accelerate scalable solution deployment across the enterprise. The Accelerator delivered thought, policy, and platform leadership, as well as end-to-end model development and Agile AI methodologies to support and empower teammates across Truist to grow ideas from early stage to MVP to fully deployed solutions. In addition, the A3 team drove Generative AI innovation across multiple use cases including Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), summarization, and code generation.
Formerly, Bjorn was SVP for Agile AI at Wells Fargo, Global Cognitive Finance Leader with IBM for a top-3 International Bank, and the Global Leader for Cognitive Visioning and Strategy for IBM Watson, where he provided strategic direction for marquee engagements including H&R Block and Vodafone.
Prior to joining IBM, Bjorn held a number of senior leadership roles in companies ranging from Silicon Valley startups to large, multinational consulting enterprises working with companies such as Apple, AT&T, Microsoft, and Ford.
Bjorn began his career as an interpreter and translator in Vienna. Today he uses those skills to detect meaningful patterns in noisy data and craft scalable and profitable strategies that are in tune with diverse stakeholder needs.
An expert in applied AI, Bjorn has given hundreds of executive and plenary presentations, including most recently:
- Future of Digital Finance Austin 2023
- CDAO Financial Services New York 2023
- ReWork AI in Finance 2023
- AI Summit New York 2022
- AI & Big Data Expo North America 2022
Bjorn holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, an M.A. in Translation and Interpretation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and an M.A. in Conference Interpretation from the University of Vienna, Austria.
Specialties:
- Applied Predictive & Generative AI
- AI/ML Platform Strategy / Acceleration
- AI Talent Sourcing & Retention
- Data & Digital Strategy
- Strategic Innovation and Change Management
- Team Building & Mentoring
- Policy Development / Modernization
