AI Literacy Starts in the C-Suite

Beth Miles (0:00)

Now is the time to actually think about redesigning your processes. AI can be an accelerant, but you have to have kind of all the mechanics and the process and the data to actually make it run really well.

Cindi Howson (0:22)

Welcome to The Data & AI Chief. I'm your host, Cindi Howson.

You've read the AI playbooks. So many are built around a workforce that's tethered to a desk. But what do you do when most of your people aren't near a keyboard?

That's the challenge our guest today is facing. Beth Miles is the Chief AI Officer at Advantage Solutions. Advantage Solutions is the leading omni-channel retail solutions provider with a distributed workforce of over 60,000 teammates who help consumer brands and retailers market, stock, and sell their products. In this episode, you'll learn why AI literacy has to start with leadership, what it takes to bring a massive workforce along for the change, and how to measure whether any of it is truly having an impact. Beth, welcome to The Data & AI Chief.

Beth Miles (1:23)

Thank you. Really excited to be here.

Cindi Howson (1:25)

Where in the world are you joining us from today, Beth?

Beth Miles (1:29)

Today, I'm in New York City. I'm with our AI partner, 10X. I work out of their offices, which is near Madison Square Park, which is the perfect location in New York City. You really feel at the center heart of New York. It's super vibrant. It's a great spot.

Cindi Howson (1:43)

Yes. My former backyard, but I think you also spend a fair bit of time in St. Louis. Is that right?

Beth Miles (1:49)

I do. Advantage Solutions is based in St. Louis. We have an amazing team out there, so I travel between our offices in St. Louis and Chicago, but really excited because we have offices across the US. So I get to see and hear from a lot of different people.

Cindi Howson (2:05)

Yeah. I often say St. Louis is kind of a hidden gem. A lot of people don't know about it. The Gateway to the West, the icon as an art.

Now, Beth, Advantage Solutions may not be a household name to some, but I might say we've all experienced it. Tell us a little bit about what Advantage Solutions does.

Beth Miles (2:27)

Yeah. Most Americans probably have interacted with our company and may not have known it. So we service retailers and brands that everyone knows and loves. So we work with some of the largest retailers, that includes Walmart, Costco, Target, Whole Foods, and then more than 4,000 CPG brands that service or sit in those shelves within the retailers. So our solutions touch basically every step on that path to purchase. So from the moment of discovery of that product, where they're also connecting shoppers through sampling, supply chain, digital commerce, retail merchandising, private brands, really the full spectrum across the path to purchase.

Cindi Howson (3:10)

So if I'm picturing walking through my local Costco, and usually I'll sample the baked goods or the dips. That's your company kind of making that happen behind the scenes.

Beth Miles (3:22)

That's right. That's us. You're interacting with our teammates every week when you do grocery shopping.

Cindi Howson (3:27)

Okay. So now I am having a hard time picturing AI there and that teammate, but we'll get to that.

You also have a really fascinating career journey. If there was a common theme about some of your roles, what would you say that is?

Beth Miles (3:44)

Yeah, I would say that I have sat in the intersection between a lot of things related to technology and different areas of business. So I started my career at the intersection of health care and technology as we were transforming from paper medical records to electronic medical records that exist today. That intersection changed when I changed and shifted roles into product go to market between the intersection of technology and small business. So I'm working with an ERP company and then shifted once again when I moved to Advantage and really thinking through the lens of kind of intersection with corporate transformation and how do you take a holding company and really operate as this large enterprise and then transitioning that to AI. It's been a really interesting, you know, sitting between a lot of different intersections, mainly with technology being the connecting piece, but also kind of the mortar between the bricks. I love connecting people, process, technology and allowing things to run smoother. And so really that's been kind of the trajectory within the last 15 years.

Cindi Howson (4:48)

It's so interesting. I recently learned a new term from one of our authors on the podcast, Linda Hill. It sounds like you are what she would describe as a bridger. You're connecting the technology and the business.