How can artificial intelligence help business segments improve? What does the AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE) team work on? As Lead of the AI CoE at Fresenius Digital Technology (FDT), Naresh Chindore heads up a team that uses artificial intelligence to improve processes at the Fresenius Group. In this interview, he reveals why he enjoys his work so much.
My job title is “Head of AI CoE” – which means that I head up the AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE) at Fresenius Digital Technology. As the team lead, I am mainly responsible for stakeholder management, working with the steering committee to define the strategy, supporting the team and also, of course, managing the workload, as it can be extremely high. One of my main tasks is to bring value to all our users whilst also keeping my team engaged. The AI CoE was only established at the beginning of 2024, so there are still lots of structures to define and this also forms a considerable part of my work.
I love that we handle the core problems at the ground level. We talk to doctors, to colleagues at the production sites, to service technicians on the road – in other words, to lots of different people. The kind of access we have to real-life problems inspires me and really motivates me. The second aspect is that working on AI means that we are dealing with the hottest and most advanced technology that is currently available. There is a revolution underway, and it is changing the entire way in which IT functions. And we are in the hot seat! This is highly motivating.
I am also really happy with how quickly we were able to set up our team. The AI CoE team was founded at the beginning of 2024 – less than a year ago from the time we carried out this interview. And yet we have already delivered some quick success stories and managed to get a fair amount of attention within the Group. Which is good! The business segments are bringing us their use cases, problems and challenges so that we can help solve them. It means we have quite a healthy pipeline of projects to work on.
I am highly motivated by the responsibility of leading this team. They are all doers and so strongly and enthusiastically committed to solving business problems. They come from very diverse backgrounds, so have a broad range of expertise – from architecture to development and design; from stakeholders to project management and consulting. This forms a unique skillset, and it is a pleasure to work with them each day.
My core qualification is in Chemical Engineering. I have also studied Marketing Management. Back in India at this time everybody was moving towards IT – so I did too and learned some core languages like C++ and Java. Following this, I had a lot of international exposure working for consulting firms: five years in Belgium, four years in the US and for the past ten plus years here in Germany. My previous position was also in the healthcare industry. That led me to Fresenius – I came here as part of the transformation team. I have been working at Fresenius for the past three and a half years now.
Let me use the analogy of assembling a car to try and explain what I really like about working in this industry and especially at Fresenius as opposed to working in a consultancy for example: When working in consulting, it is like building a wheel or another part of the vehicle. Whereas in the industry, you build the whole car, so you get the big picture. And what I really love about Fresenius is the transparency with which our leadership team communicates. It gives me the flexibility to pass relevant information onto the right channels in the right manner to our colleagues. This makes us all feel like we are part of both the transformation journey and of the organization. Knowing the objectives keeps the level of excitement high and allows you to stay motivated. It is a trustworthy organization; you are openly told what the plan is for you and your career path. All of this comes in addition to the obvious purpose you can draw from working within the healthcare industry.
I have to repeat myself here: I am really proud of the team. We are really gaining momentum and we have a good turnaround of projects. When dealing with AI, you have to adapt your existing knowledge to fit in the rapidly developing aspects of AI and, of course, the core knowledge of finding solutions. When a team like ours works on this, the only output can be success. And secondly, our success is also based on trust from the top. We get an immense amount of support from senior management to drive our topics forward. So yes, trust and the team are the major aspects that make me really proud to be part of this organization and to head up this center of excellence.
Thank you for the interview Naresh!