Manulife Promotes Harshad Rane to VP, Head of AI, Global Operations - CDO Magazine

Large companies like Manulife just promoted someone specifically to run AI across their global operations. Not to experiment with it. To run it. That gap between them and you? It's not about budget.

Large companies like Manulife just promoted someone specifically to run AI across their global operations. Not to experiment with it. To run it.

That gap between them and you? It's not about budget. It's about focus.

You bought that tool. Your team never touched it. $200 a month quietly disappearing. That's not a you problem — that's what happens when nobody owns AI inside the business. Big companies figured this out first: AI without a clear owner is just expensive software nobody uses.

Here's what Manulife got right before the promotion. They started with customer-facing AI — the place where results are visible fast. Not back-office experiments. Not internal tools nobody measures. Customer impact, tracked from day one.

You don't need a VP. You need one person on your team who owns one AI process. Pick the customer touchpoint that costs you the most time right now. That's your starting point.

Assign it. Measure it. Prove it works in 30 days.

One win changes how your whole team sees AI — and how your competitors see you.

What's the one repetitive customer task in your business that's eating the most hours every week?

#AIStrategy #SmallBusiness #BusinessGrowth #AIImplementation

Original Source

Before stepping into the role, Rane served as AVP, Global Customer AI Solutions at Manulife, where he led the development and deployment of enterprise ...