Her Story
About Aradhna
I've been in my field for over 10 years, with nearly 9 years at Ernst & Young, where I currently serve as a Senior Manager. I lead global teams on AI projects focused on financial services clients, working to figure out how AI can improve their operations and customer experience. My work involves not just executing strategy, but also building the technology and data foundations to support it. The problems I tackle vary from client to client, but most of the time it's about implementing AI to make something better, faster, more durable. You learn a lot every day, almost every day. Before joining EY, I worked at Standard & Poor's for about 3 years at the start of my career. One of my most notable professional achievements has been getting some of our marquee service offerings at Ernst & Young off the ground. When AI became commonplace in 2023 with ChatGPT and other tools, we had to respond to the market changing very quickly. We built offerings, service models, and mentored our team to quickly adopt AI so that when we're client-facing and working with our financial services clients, we're giving them the best advice based on what we're learning and doing alongside them. We did a lot of incubation and fast-paced innovation inside our firm to take these things to market and show clients what we were thinking about certain aspects of their business. I've been able to execute multiple-year engagements and launch very interesting things that clients never had before, like personalized chatbots that speak to you like a human and resolve your problem within 10 minutes, and AI-driven marketing offers that help financial services firms send the right products to the right customer segments. I'm currently on the partner track at Ernst & Young, and I'm also writing a book about consulting and how younger professionals can manage their careers in a field with high burnout rates. My company nominated me to be an ambassador to the Massachusetts High Technology Council, where I get to share my ideas with senior business leaders who are a couple of decades older than me, helping them see how AI can be additive to their jobs and how they can bring it into their curriculum or improve employee retention and happiness.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Aradhna
01What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
AI has changed jobs completely. The biggest opportunity is making people see how AI can be additive to their jobs, accretive to their jobs. If they're a business owner, if they are high schools, or they're higher education institutes, how do they bring it into their curriculum, or how do they improve their employee retention and happiness? I want to influence high schools and higher education institutes to do different things, to look into the practitioner lens, which is me, and see a different perspective of the world. I'm writing a book about consulting because it's a very interesting field with high burnout rates, and I don't think anybody ever hands you a handbook to manage your career that's so full of change, not even a 9 to 5, but a stable or more predictable career.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think my worth is its own reward. The metrics that matter to me are: am I developing new business? Am I taking new things to market? Am I thinking creatively about our business at EY, and am I mentoring new people and helping them grow in their careers? I honestly think work is its own reward. My values are very much not aligned to certain things like paid-to-play opportunities. If I'm paying to play, is that fine? Is that not? That's really what got me thinking. I want to make some changes, I want to make something that has good return on investment, either through my book, or through actual participation and exposure, through panel discussions, or even hands-on partnerships with non-profit organizations.
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