Tech-Exec 18 - Greg Wilson Brochure

G R E G WILSON

TRUST IN TRANSFORMATION

GREG WILSON DISCUSSES THE LEADERSHIP OF TRANSFORMATION SUCCESS, HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS HELPING AND EMPOWERING LEADERS, AND TRANSITIONING FROM A CAREER IN THE MILITARY TO BECOMING WORLD WIDE PUBLIC SECTOR GOVERNMENT CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER AT MICROSOFT. SUPPORTED BY:

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My role covers an expansive portfolio of global public sector segments. They include public safety and justice clients, public finance organisations, as well as vital public health and social services organisations.

Underpinning these segments are also the dayto-day government operations and a diverse array of national critical infrastructure.

My scope of work is significant and each day I’m impressed by the dedication of public service employees around the world. It is my responsibility to help them use our Microsoft technology to succeed in addressing many of the challenges governments face through leveraging the power of our leading, worldclass technologies as they undergo digital and AI transformation journeys. This improves

Digital transformation is no longer an “if,” but more simply a “when” and “must.”

The focus now is on how to deliver on the execution of many cloud-first strategies.

Speaking with government officials, everyone is excited about the endless possibilities that innovative technologies can bring, especially with AI. One thing is for certain, to fully harness the power of all the wonderful benefits technology can provide, the first step is to migrate Government workloads and services to the cloud. That is where Microsoft can help. With Azure, you unlock the vast benefits of services through AI, analytics, and innovation at pace.

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I have the huge privilege of working at Microsoft in the World Wide Sales team, supporting the public sector and governments around the world, as well as collaborating with some great partners too.

both employee and people experiences, whilst increasing productivity and innovation across public sector organisations.

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Q: By way of an introduction, could you give a brief overview of your current work?

Tell me about your previous experiences in AI and leadership across your career and how they influenced you.

It is my role to be that ‘technical copilot’ to our customers, partners, and internal teams. Helping AI leaders not just follow AI but take the lead in AI adoption. My military experiences influence my work with modern technology, enable me to take calculated risks, and adopt a growth mindset approach.

A lot of the roles that I held in the military are remarkably similar to what I am doing at Microsoft - delivering change collaboratively, 71

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solving problems, and producing innovations by leveraging the right tools and the right technologies, with the right skilled team to support. Both within the military and now at Microsoft, the right culture and teamwork are critical to success.

Q: Looking broadly at your experience to date, how would you say AI and its role in the organisation have evolved over that time, and what do you think have been the key drivers or trends behind it?

It is an exciting time to be at Microsoft, and I am proud of the fact that we are leading the AI era. For me, AI is one of the most defining technologies of the modern era.

Its impact is everywhere. With tools like Microsoft Copilot and MS Fabric, everyone is now able to access this technology.

I also think it can help drive inclusivity by helping people harness insights from massive lakes of data. For those who can accelerate innovation and embrace their data as a strategic asset, they are faring much better.

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They have established the culture, and the capabilities needed to be more agile, and can anticipate and predict disruptions and thereby pivot as needed with recent technologies and opportunities to better serve their customers.

I think one of the key drivers behind the evolution of AI in organisations is beginning to use AI technologies like Azure OpenAI Service and our Copilots, as it generates a real desire for data-driven decision-making to drive new offerings and business models.

The work between people and machines has gotten closer. As with our Copilots and the implementation of generative AI, it increases efficiency in productivity and enhances public sector decision-making, which is really helping governments use technology to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges.

There are multiple areas where we see this happening, including, delivering innovation through programs and experiences, using AI to empower the government workforce, and transforming the government operations and services for employees and the public.

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When an organisation pivots the business significantly and there’s widespread change, such as introducing AI technologies, that also requires stakeholder endorsement if it is going to succeed. Navigating through internal political difficulties, whether it is in government or an organisation, is critical to landing digital transformation. The leadership of transformation success is not just about a sharp vision, detailed strategy, and well-thought-through implementations, it is also grounded in clear governance and accountability at all levels.

that you get the right solution. Normally internally selected people would invariably come from high profile in-demand positions, which have an impact on the business.

Therefore, no one wants to lose them to other teams, especially whilst momentous change is in train. However, it sends a clear message across organisations on the importance of change if you resource it with some of your best team members. I have found that it delivers a more perceptive, practical, sustainable, and innovative design, as well as stronger implementation across all departments they have representation in the execution plan. The ability to form, incentivise, and lead high-performing transformation teams undoubtedly reaps rewards and makes organisations more competitive and productive.

In terms of implementing transformation, you need to be able to start the transformation journey with an inclusive internal team, possibly augmented with external consultancies. It is important to represent a mix of genders, functions, and ages, to ensure

It is an exciting time, but underpinning successful transformation is also the need for a durable foundation in talent management, security, and trust. The need to have trust in leaders and trust in technology is required to make transformations happen.

Q: What about transformation itself?

Why is AI transformation necessary, and what are the fundamental steps to doing it successfully from a leadership and organisational perspective?

Q: Why does AI in business appeal to you as a professional, and then in the wider sense, what does it look like from a leadership perspective when compared to other industries?

AI is amazing and offers so many opportunities to be creative, improve productivity, and offer government services to people. Throughout my career, I have been inspired by innovative technologies, solving thorny problems, being entrepreneurial, and delivering change for the better. Personally, I like to improve processes and take pride in creating a purpose with technology at the helm. Especially in the public sector, I like to enhance the system to make things more innovative, agile, and better for people.

I think those strategic drivers across all industries are pretty much the same. What is the purpose and outcome? What is the differentiation AI can unlock? How does it change things for the better, and ideally how can I measure it? I think if you can answer these positively and then plan and execute it, then AI will have a massive impact on your industry. Irrespective of the industry, moving to the cloud, is not something to be ignored and put on the back burner. If you do not want to be left behind, or worse become obsolete, then leaders need to get to grips with how to drive forward the AI. Q: Can you give me some examples of some of the change programs you’ve worked on, and explain how and why they benefited the organisation you were in at the time?

My career has been all about using technology and implementing organisational change.

Many of the initial change programs that I participated in were about how we reorganise military units to address new threats, integrate modern technologies,

or even enhance combat effectiveness.

I think this has been equally applicable to business in addressing how we help our customers pivot to retain competitive advantage and deliver value.

When I look back to the first substantial change program I ran, it was when I was about to deploy with my Regiment (800+ personnel), providing combat communications in Afghanistan and supporting major operations there. We had to restructure the regiment and retrain it because the role that was asked of us, required a new organisational design, skills, and technologies from what we originally routinely possessed.

After that tour, I returned to a role in the Army headquarters, leading the team to redesign the Communications, Electronic, Cyber and Intelligence forces model out to 2025. During this time, there were numerous important questions to consider. What did it look like with the modern technology? How would it address some of the threats? How would it support the future of the Army going forward?

How do we implement whilst still meeting our current tempo of demand?

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The work we are doing at Microsoft in AI, especially our Copilot services, gives me a terrific opportunity to help lead the next technology evolution and help tackle many of the greatest challenges governments face, particularly in their day-to-day operations.

“Both within the military and now at Microsoft, culture and teamwork are critical to success.”

When we produced the plan, the answer to all that risk was that the Army told me to execute the plan we devised, so they put me in charge of the Brigade that was to amalgamate with two other Brigades. The expectation was to execute the plan in 2.5 years. However, once in command, I made the case to execute it a lot quicker and it was completed in eight months. We re-rolled, we got the specialist 75

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teams up, and it was driven forward. The difficult decision to accelerate the plan in the end reaped benefits for the business and gave much-needed clarity to people and their families on the personal impacts. It reinforces that as a leader you should not be afraid to make a tough decision. I actually believe they are not tough decisions if you genuinely believe it is the right decision to make for the business and team.

I was then truly fortunate to go on to a Fellowship at the Harvard Business School before returning as the Head of Capability in the Army, leading a circa £7Bn portfolio to improve technologies in command and control and intelligence. That plan was put into place for the portfolio before I was pulled out by the Ministry of Defence and asked to go and lead the transformation into Defence Intelligence.

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“Those who can accelerate innovation and embrace their data as a strategic asset are fairing better.”

After a short stint back in the Field Army – again within transformation roles while waiting on my next formal promotion appointment, Microsoft reached out and I left the service after an immensely enjoyable military career.

My role at Microsoft has been doing the same

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sort of things: discovering how we integrate change, helping customers go forward in their transformations, and applying what I learned to public health, public safety, public finance, and critical infrastructure sectors.

Q: Microsoft is a verified partner to global government supporting with implementation of AI in the cloud. Can you tell me more about that and what kind of impact you think it will have on business as a whole?

With such cutting-edge technology, the digital tech industry is moving at a rapid pace and organisations must not get left behind – this requires leadership and execution.

Therefore, for governments and industries to keep up with what’s happening with AI, strategic partnerships with the tech industry

are vital in helping to adopt new technologies.

Partnerships between Governments, Industry and Academia are fundamental to unlocking the power of technology collectively and collegiately. What we’re doing is helping Governments understand what the AI does, how it works, and how it can optimise value and drive benefits. Also, it’s equally important to assist Governments in understanding what their risks are and how to potentially mitigate them, govern them and establish appropriate guardrails.

Because Hyperscale Cloud is where all happens most effectively. This is where the data and the large language models that you had heard about go together.

Hyperscale Cloud and AI will have the biggest technological impact globally. It will touch 77

everyone, everywhere. As a result, people expect governments to use these technologies because they will transform, and are transforming, the way we work and live. We’re seeing it drive immense innovation as it goes forward.

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What we are talking to governments about, particularly in our partnerships, is the policy aspects of governance and what it means for data security, privacy, cybersecurity, and how you should think about governing AI going forward. Concurrently, we are looking at how AI can be used -the various use cases, the impact on productivity, and how it can make things better for people, whether that is in the government administration area, HR, or finance.

What I find at Microsoft is that the breadth of what we bring and the impact that Microsoft has as a global company means there is an ingrained responsibility on us to help our customers and governments understand the technology and get the best out of it.

Q: On leadership and teams, what’s your approach to these subjects? What do you think makes an effective modern AI leader, and how do you approach developing a formidable team and culture?

Vision and Passion! Whether it is related to AI or anything else, leadership is different to management. Particularly in AI, my approach to leadership stems from having situational awareness and understanding the capabilities on which to base decisions and drive solutions. If a leader has that situational awareness, a growth mindset, the ability to learn, to seek advice, and to intelligently question the advice and facts given to them, then it helps create their vision. Leaders create visions. Once that vision is created, they then need the passion, enthusiasm, and drive to take people on the journey and be inspired and trusted.

The next thing to consider is how, as a leader, you address failures. Continual learning and being accountable for failure requires selfreflection and adaptability from leaders and 78

“The leadership of transformation success is not just about a clear vision, detailed strategy, and wellthought-through implementations, it’s about governance and accountability at all levels.” to model authenticity. Authenticity links to trust, and I think if you have authenticity combined with empathy, vision, and clarity, this helps you be a respected and trusted leader, especially during hard times.

In addition, a leader needs to take time to listen, support, and incentivise.

At Microsoft, as leaders, we try to focus on how we create clarity, generate energy, and deliver success for our teams.

When I personally approach building a highperforming team two things stand out for me as key – creating a common purpose and having the right culture. Members of the team need to believe in the purpose of what they are doing and to do so will help them to produce a stronger performance. At the same time, they need to believe in the values, standards, fairness, and behaviours required of the team. Having the right culture makes people happier, more productive and empowered. Establishing a strong culture and purpose does take time and needs clarity for the team to understand. Continual communication and involving the team

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throughout the transformation decisions, so they feel they are involved and not just having something done to them, is paramount to a smooth transition. This requires empathy and taking time to listen to, and address, an individual’s concerns. Finally, as a leader, modelling the standards expected helps set the right tone. At the same time, it is equally important to hold people accountable, irrespective of level, for those standards and behaviours to help reinforce the culture.

about cloud hosting. It was not just about applications. It was about everything – IAAS, PAAS and SAAS. The opportunity to help influence our future products and implementation plans ranging from our Microsoft 365 products, all the way through to our massive data centres, what we do in research, and what we do regarding sustainability, to make a tangible difference for our customers is what genuinely excites me.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit more about Microsoft? When you joined the team, what was your assessment of the organisation from an AI and business perspective, and what did you set out as your key objectives and goals?

That is how the technology inspired me, but it is also about the people. The people at Microsoft suited my passion by having the same growth mindset. They want to make a difference. They are people who relate to an organisation that I relate to. It is that culture that fundamentally makes a difference and makes it such a wonderful place to work.

For me, the opportunity to come and work for a company with the brand and reputation of Microsoft was amazing. The breadth of technology that Microsoft brings and what we can do for industries, customers, and partner ecosystems is just immense. Microsoft appealed to me because it was not just 80

Initially, my goal was to support the national security sector, using and understanding our technologies, to modernise and ask questions.

I understood the gaps and where the threats were, so working in national security to begin

with was awesome. However, after about a year, Microsoft was keen to expand my reach into the global team and across government.

In the global government team, this role has been about helping Governments understand the cloud and helping them modernise and migrate to the hyperscale cloud to be able to optimise the use of technologies like AI. Governments and the military are superb at setting out concepts, policies, thinking, and papers. The burning question is always - how do you take that and turn it into action? That is where I have been trying to help governments see the way through, to solving their challenges and modernising.

Q: What are the key initiatives?

This is not just about tech though. This is also about how we are training people, listening to the partners and customers, and adapting how we help them. That is really how we are evolving. We are not standing still. You have seen the number of products and opportunities and restructuring that we have done lately because, if we stood still, we would be failing our customers and partners.

Microsoft is keen to evolve how AI is learned, help people understand how to implement it, and share the best practices to empower people to get the benefits of AI in the cloud.

Q. Microsoft recently partnered with Thomson Reuters to develop a contract drafting solution powered by Microsoft Copilot for Word and Thomson Reuters’ generative AI capabilities. Could you provide some more details about the solution itself?

Microsoft 365 Copilot is reinventing productivity for people and organisations, and we collaborated with Thomson

Reuters to extend Copilot with new AIpowered experiences that will support legal professionals by saving them time and helping them drive value for the clients and the businesses they serve. Together, we developed a contract drafting solution, powered by its legal products and content, and our Copilot for Word. Delivering users with a draft working document and access to trusted content right where work happens – in Microsoft Word, professionals can use their expertise to edit, validate, and build the final document with integrated access to Thomson Reuters knowledge, content, and AI technology. This is a clear case where productivity increases through creativity and AI.

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Our key Microsoft initiatives currently revolve around AI deployment and adoption. The focus is on how we can help people in an organisation and use AI to augment people’s day-to-day experiences. To unlock that we are assisting on helping organisations to transition to the cloud, and supporting their digital transformation use cases.

“The ability to form, incentivise, and lead high performing transformation teams undoubtedly reaps rewards and makes organisations more competitive.”

Q. As organisations that both strive to consistently innovate, what is the process of collaboration like, why does the partnership work well, and how have your products and services assisted each other in achieving this innovation?

We continually strive to unlock limitless innovation and drive business transformation for customers around the world. Through partnering together, Thomson Reuters and Microsoft help customers harness the value of AI, drive the value of solutions, and shape the future. This common purpose, and our collaboration, work incredibly well to help provide opportunities to innovate, scale, and differentiate our customers’ businesses.

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By using the power of our technologies and innovating on a trusted, connected ecosystem we are modernising applications and tools to enable new customer experiences as demonstrated in the recent work supporting legal professionals.

Q: Looking ahead, how do you think AI in the business sector will evolve over the coming years and why?

I think what we are going to see is that leadership and the impact of AI algorithms will change over time. We are going to see disruption, and those who need to succeed or want to succeed, need to understand AI, its roadmap, and its potential benefits and risks. The pace of AI adoption has never been as fast as it is today and will never be as slow as it is today, so naturally, it is testing for businesses to keep up. But they must think through how they can keep pace.

In the business and government sectors, the Copilot products that are coming out, the data insights, and the impact of 5G, 6G,

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and quantum evolution, are going to drive how AI is adopted. One of the biggest impacts will be the move to smart cities. If you have got 5G, 6G, and quantum computing, understanding the environment, the impact on public services, and the demand for resilience is going to be important.

I think we will see a lot more in the metaverse, and by that, I also mean digital twins. How do we design? How do we improve productivity, and industrialise? One thing I always say is the most valuable racing car in Formula 1 is the digital twin because it saves you so much money in testing going forward. I think that same approach will drive deeper into the government sector as we use digital twins increasingly to model and think through how things will impact businesses and services. AI will generate a real process change and there is a real skill change as well. Fundamentally, AI technology will impact everyone’s lives.

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Thomson Reuters Case Center

High volume administrative court accelerates with Case Center How does a 30-person staff handle 250 cases a year — some with up to 9,000 pages of evidence and a statutory requirement to rule within 30 days?

For the New York Education Department’s Office of State Review, the answer includes a mix of great people and an important assist from technology like Thomson Reuters® Case Center.

The administrative court is led by a Chief State Review Officer, and includes three other judges, legal and education experts, and administrative staff. They rule on appeals for parents and school districts who challenge a hearing officer’s ruling. The 2021 caseload was double what they handled in 2010.

Remote work wreaks havoc on a paper-based review process The uptick in cases started when people were working in the office, and they could get by with paper files. It wasn’t a great system, though, and the team started adding technology to streamline their work.

Remote work in the early days of the pandemic made managing paper files impossible. Emailing documents was also untenable due to the need to limit access. They began storing documents in encrypted file sharing platforms so people could at least access the materials they were authorized to see.

The office added Thomson Reuters Case Center to the toolkit in 2022. This new approach to evidence review simplifies administration, review, and collaboration.

Case Center enables better teamwork — from anywhere All case materials are uploaded to Case Center for the internal team. Powerful features include: Work from anywhere: paper filings can’t leave the office.

Now the team can work from anywhere. That includes hybrid work or the times when they need to work overtime to meet a deadline. Plus, the interface is the same no matter where you are or if you’re using VPN or not.

Notes and highlights: reviewers can make notes for themselves or their colleagues. The system stores these notes without adding them to the original record. © 2023 Thomson Reuters TR3927516/11-23

Case Center templates: “It’s very easy to upload and organize evidence,” says the office’s Chief State Review Officer. He’s no longer flipping through manila folders to find or organize the documents he needs. “It used to take me 10 minutes to get to the right document, and now I can get there in 30 seconds without breaking my train of thought.”

Sharing bundles with the federal courts: the department used to have people photocopy the original record for cases that were appealed into the federal courts, and they were often lagging on deadlines. “Now we can quickly produce a bundle that automatically gives the record and materials to as many people as are entitled to it and want it,” says the office’s Chief State Review Officer.

Easy to use, out of the box The Chief State Review Officer thought his team would take two months to get comfortable with Case Center, but he found that they were using it like experts in two weeks. He says that being able to upload bookmarked files really helped with navigating through the different elements of the file. The team appreciated being able to print documents when they preferred to make their notes in writing, though with time they also got used to the notes and highlighting tools.

“Using Case Center has been easy and fast,” says the office’s Chief State Review Officer. Being able to manage the system without relying on developers and other IT staff also simplified their use of the tool significantly. “We love that it was ready to go out of the box,” he says. “People are really happy with it.”

Be confident you can rely on a solution partner you can trust. At Thomson Reuters, we have teams and processes dedicated to ensuring cloud security and accessibility.

Please contact us if you need more information:

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Strategies for advancing technology within the courtroom

© 2023 Thomson Reuters TR3895844/10-23

Case Center and Westlaw® Precision are a powerful combination that enables judges and court professionals to move cases faster through the judicial system, manage evidence more effectively, and conduct more thorough research quickly.

Thomson Reuters Case Center Move cases faster, improve evidence sharing with the court, and support paperless hearings.

Westlaw Precision Innovative tools deliver advanced speed and accuracy, providing you with greater confidence in your legal research.

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