Jessi Szurek
Associate Partner, SYNTHESIS | AI Strategy, Data Transformation & Governance
An AI strategy advisor to Tier 1 banks and insurers who works at the seam where enterprise AI programs most often break — the gap between board approval and reality.
Categories
Talking points
- Why most bank AI programs fail before they start
- How to make AI regulator-safe without slowing it down
- Why the CAIO’s real problem is organizational, not technical
- What Big 4 consulting gets wrong about AI delivery
- Design thinking inside banks: why it’s rare and why it works
- POC-to-MVP sequencing in highly regulated environments
The Hook
She watched a $40 million AI program collapse in a boardroom — and the technology never failed.
Over 17 years, Jessi Szurek has seen the same preventable collapse repeat across dozens of financial institutions: programs killed not by regulators, but by teams that skipped alignment and governance. She advises Chief AI and Chief Risk Officers on closing that strategy-to-execution gap.
Bio for your show notes
108 wordsJessi Szurek is an Associate Partner at SYNTHESIS, advising C-suite executives at global banks and insurers on enterprise AI implementation, model risk governance, and the strategy-to-execution gap where most programs quietly fall apart. She came up through EY and has spent nearly two decades leading transformation and AI-enabled data initiatives across insurance, private banking, wealth management, and capital markets — building scalable, audit-ready systems inside highly regulated environments. Her edge is a rare cross-institutional pattern library: she has seen the same failure patterns repeat across dozens of institutions, not just one. She holds a Bachelor’s in Design & Environmental Analysis from Cornell and an MBA from NYU Stern.
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