Showcasing MBAi Talent at Deloitte
Rich Nanda is responsible for the entire spectrum of Deloitte's consulting offerings, including 90,000 employees. When he wanted to talk about AI with fellow executives, he turned to Northwestern's MBAi program.
Rich Nanda is the US Consulting Offering Portfolio Leader at Deloitte, where he is responsible for the entire spectrum of the company's consulting offerings. That includes 90,000 of Deloitte’s employees.
Yet when he wanted to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) in a meeting with 20 fellow executives, he turned outside the global professional services firm.
He turned to Northwestern's MBAi Program, an AI-focused MBA program offered jointly between the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering.
“There's a shortage of people who have sufficient expertise in the domains of business, business strategy, business economics, business leadership, data science, and artificial intelligence,” said Nanda, who invited a panel of students to talk with his colleagues. “MBAi is at the forefront of creating that talent.”
Deloitte is looking to scoop up that talent as it adjusts to the growing influence of AI in the workforce.
Nanda’s job is to help guide that transition at Deloitte, which provides audit, tax, consulting, and advisory services to clients across a huge swath of industries.
He also is a member of the MBAi Industry Advisory Board, which is tasked with ensuring the program’s curriculum remains aligned with real-world needs. Those needs increasingly include AI acumen, he said.
“If we can have more business-savvy data scientists and more AI-savvy business leaders, I'll take them all on Team Deloitte,” he said. “They remain scarce and differentiated in terms of what the world and the economy and our clients need more of.
“There's real magic here at MBAi, and we should be proud and vocal about that magic.”
That’s why the panel of current MBAi students was first on the agenda for the Nanda's meeting with fellow Deloitte executives.
“I wanted them to hear why these students chose an academic training that's at the intersection of business and AI and technology, plus what their peers at MBAi talk about and think about,” he said. “Deloitte is on this journey ourselves, so this was a little bit of an outside-in catalyst. The students were a grand slam. Everyone loved it.”
Though Nanda is heavily focused on AI, it doesn’t come at the expense of the people who work for him at Deloitte. He's not looking for the technology to replace his employees. Reliance on top-tier talent remains at the core of the business, he said.
“Even at our scale, the business of serving a client and a client team is deeply human,” said Nanda, who has been with Deloitte for more than 20 years. “While the things we do can be technical in nature, you have to make it work within a very human organization, a very human team.”
That means that when Nanda and Deloitte are looking to add new talent, they search for well-rounded individuals who understand there is more to business success than technology. Part of what Nanda looks for is a continued desire to learn and grow.
It's a lesson he shares with MBAi students, potential hires, and his fellow executives alike.
“As much as we go to places like business schools and engineering schools to acquire people who have competency and technical savvy, you've got to have a bunch of human savvy as well,” he said. “You never know it all, and you have to be a constant learner when you show up to your clients.”