Elvis Cernjul, Chief Information Officer, The Ubique Group

Today we welcome Elvis Cernjul, Chief Information Officer at the Ubique Group, to The CXO Journey to the AI Future podcast

Elvis is a distinguished leader in the field of information technology and operational excellence, combining a rich academic background with extensive professional experience. He holds an M.Sc. in Technology Leadership from Brown University (as of May 2024), an MBA, and a B.Sc. in Information Technology. Elvis has excelled in multiple high-level roles including Chief Information Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief Information Security Officer. His career is highlighted by his skill in transforming IT infrastructures, pioneering digital marketing strategies, and leading teams in high-stakes environments. He is currently making impactful strides at The Ubique Group while continuing to drive innovation and operational excellence across the tech industry.

Question 1: First Job: Could you talk a little bit about your background and how you got to the position where you are now?

So, the Ubique Group is a collection of brands that source and sell commercial-grade office and home products through channel partners like Wayfair, Walmart, Amazon, and others, along with B2B and D2C models. Prior to my tenure here at Ubique Group, I served in a variety of roles including a stint as an Army Ranger, believe it or not, and eventually wound up as both a CIO and COO.

My background includes about 35 years of leadership experience. 25 of those are within technology with a particular focus on the retail space.

Question 2: Generative AI: Everybody’s talking about it. You’re an operator of a large organization and you probably have other things to worry about, but we in the investment world think it’s all the rage, of course, and arguably it could be. What do you think about it from a priority standpoint?

I think that for our business, and the retail space as a whole, it’s a top priority. It provides such a leap in capabilities that if it’s not embraced in some capacity you’ll fall behind your peers.

It needs to be a part of every conversation that involves the future state of the business. My roadmap here at the Ubique Group revolves around leveraging the AI capabilities of any given platform. It’s not even really a competitive advantage anymore, it’s quickly transforming into a commodity.

And as we all know, machine learning and AI have been around for a while, but ChatGPT, Copilot, and some others have ushered in the accessibility of large AI language models.

Question 3: Early learnings. I presume you’ve been experimenting with it and done some personal testing with ChatGPT. I’m sure some of your teams are using it. I’m sure bosses or business units are coming to you with ideas. So what are some of the early learnings about it?

We’re thoughtfully, cautiously, yet excitedly approaching AI through ChatGPT. Today we’re subscribed to co-pilot and we’ve been kicking the tires on Einstein through Salesforce and a variety of other solutions.

A couple of initial learnings:

First, it’s really difficult to get a peek behind the curtains on how companies that are offering AI solutions plan to use our data, and what true safeguards are in place.

Second, the results today are not always accurate, detailed, or polished.

All that being said, we’re tackling a few initiatives where AI is at the forefront of discussions, including new customer care processes, call center systems, content and copy, business intelligence… and my development team is using it quite a bit

When managing change of this magnitude within an organization, especially with AI, it’s important to position it as a complimentary service and not a replacer. So I’ve been trying to balance it with that message as part of my language to the organization.

Question 4: New metrics: If you could break down the use cases you just described, how would you think about the metrics applied to each of them? You mentioned developer teams. Are you able to realize that impact? How are you thinking about metrics?

One thing that I’ve seen gain a lot of traction is time to market on development through AI-enhanced coding.

One of the intangible ones that we’re just now playing with is bubbling up business metrics through conversational AI. So it’s asking the data to reveal things that the business may not yet know to ask.

When ChatGPT released advanced data analytics, I started taking data from FRED BLS and some other public information, and throwing it into a spreadsheet along with Google Trends word. Then, I started asking ChatGPT to come up with correlations that I specifically wouldn’t even think to ask. I was amazed at the results that it was providing.

So, as a next step, I started showcasing this functionality to other key stakeholders within the business, and that led us to adopt a budget to pursue improving our insights and data analytics hub and expanding that to a data lake with some generative AI capabilities built into it.

Question 5: One of the questions that CIOs often ask is “buy versus build.” You mentioned some investments in current tech today, including Einstein and others. So the existing providers, I’m sure, are coming to you with their AI offerings. Does that give you an opportunity to buy versus build? Is there a combination of that? Or do you choose one or another?

We’re strictly focused on leveraging what our vendors offer. So we’re not staffed to create or train our language models. It’s not necessarily a differentiator for us. So yes, we’re closely partnering with our software providers and platforms to provide that means.

Bonus: Are they giving you an opportunity to convey your use cases, and design toward your use cases, so to speak? Is it evolving that quickly? Do you see a receptivity on that side?

Yes, for sure. With our partners at Salesforce along with the data lake that we just implemented, it’s a pretty close relationship.

Question 6: Gaps: Where are the gaps you’re seeing today? Undoubtedly you see some divots in the field, things you need to address. Is that a people issue? Is that a process issue? Or is that a technology issue?

I think it’s a little bit of all of the above. It’s training, knowing how to ask the AI the right questions, and how to identify errors. There’s also staffing. There’s no position, at least in our organization, dedicated to AI. But that is something I see changing throughout the industry within the next few years.

One of the key issues, as far as gaps go, is how to best wrap guardrails around AI so that users aren’t accidentally sharing sensitive information.

Bonus: And is that just educating the team on how to best use it?

It is, yes. We’ve had a few educational opportunities for employees, and we’ll continue down that path as well.

But I also struggle with how to wrap a technological guardrail around it so that we protect our assets, such as our customer data.

Question 7: Responsible AI: How does an organization like yours manage to be responsible when it comes to leveraging AI? How do you think about it? What actions should you take as a CIO?

Responsible AI…Defining it is an interesting endeavor that for me includes data privacy and security. Especially since now, we’re a global company, we have different regulations to adhere to. This includes our level of transparency with regard to using customer information. It also includes mitigating biases.

I believe everyone in retail wants to ensure that things like product recommendations, pricing, and marketing strategies are fair and equitable across all demographics. The same type of concerns extend to the internal consumption of data. We want to avoid a learning model that amplifies and doubles down on inaccurate results, which I’ve seen.

But I’m proud that we’re championing ESG within our organization. Part of our thoughts, or at least my thoughts, about wrapping responsibility around AI, is ensuring that we’re considering the use of energy-efficient AI technologies.

Elvis Cernjul is a distinguished leader in the field of technology and operational excellence, combining a rich academic background with extensive professional experience. Holding an M.Sc. in Technology Leadership from Brown University (expected May 2024), an MBA, and a B.Sc. in Information Technology, Elvis has excelled in multiple high-level roles such as Chief Information Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief Information Security Officer. His career is highlighted by his skill in transforming IT infrastructures, pioneering digital marketing strategies, and leading teams in high-stakes environments.

Elvis’s unique leadership approach is shaped by his military background as a Combat Veteran and Ranger, bringing a blend of strategic discipline and resilience to his corporate endeavors. Currently making impactful strides at The Ubique Group, Elvis continues to drive innovation and operational excellence in the tech industry.