Episode 22 - The Governance Wizard

Welcome to episode #22 of Agents of AI, Capto’s podcast for leaders who want to understand how humans + AI agents are reshaping the future.
The "Governance Wizard" joins us to share:

• They have over 20-25 years of experience in the "big four" industry and have also worked in-house at large companies such as IBM and the Lego Group. Focusing on governance, having built structures like tax risk management and control frameworks, which involves transforming the business, the finance department, and the tax function through technology.

• The motivation for their career is the evolution of the field, where companies are now taking tax governance seriously and are beginning to see how governance and technology can move together to deliver not just governance but also quality data for business use. 

• What is underappreciated about the role is that getting control of data through governance and controls creates "order in the house" or structure in the finance or tax department. This transparency makes it easier to evaluate business decisions, such as entering new markets or diagnosing issues.

• They started using AI due to curiosity a couple of years back. The interest grew from a governance perspective, as a governance model requires controlling, which often involves manually sampling data and looking at it.

• Their early use cases for AI included managing intercompany agreements and transactions. The guest noted that in large, busy, and complex companies, thousands of intercompany transactions occur, and AI is a very good solution for checking if those transactions have been carried out correctly. Other early uses included using AI to go through the massive amount of data related to expense accounts to ensure transactions were correctly entered into the system, as expense rules vary across different countries.

• That the value of AI is increasingly seen in terms of quality, risk, and accuracy of processes, rather than solely on speed and efficiency, noting that AI deployments should be approached from the perspective of which risks are being avoided or taken down.

• Two aspirational future use cases shared for AI are external and internal. The external use case is an AI that could process the constant "bombarding" of new regulations, legislation changes, and rate changes that multinational companies face. The AI would be taught the company's operational model and then analyze how the changes would affect the company, providing a "chewed" down version for human review. The internal use case involves AI raising flags when internal events occur that tax departments are not necessarily involved in, such as someone setting up a new company code or procurement creating a new contract with a new vendor. This could also include marketing starting a new loyalty program, where tax is involved but not necessarily asked to participate at the right time.

• Their final advice to peers is not to fear AI but to "embrace it" and adapt to the "next generation and the way forward".

...and finally their identity is revealed as Claus Agger, Founder of Comply2Tax: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claus-agger/ 
Agents of AI features CFOs, other practitioners, technology leaders, and AI visionaries to share real wins, failures, and strategies, so teams everywhere can learn, adapt, and lead. You can also learn any time from the entire knowledge base of our guests via our "AI Twin". https://hey.speak-to.ai/agents-of-ai 
 If you know a superhero and "Agent of AI" that should join our program, or you are one yourself! Comment, tag them, or reach out to Alexis Chevallot or Peter Steube on LinkedIn.  https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearecapto