Episode #1 : Redefining the role of the Tech Leader in the Age of AI Disruption

Full Episode Transcript

This is the full recorded conversation from The Human Protocol Podcast, published by The Human Protocol Group. © 2026 The Human Protocol Group. Please link to and attribute the original episode when referencing this conversation.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (00:02.702)
Hello everyone. Welcome to The Human Protocol, the podcast about staying human while building the future. I am your host, Mykel Salomon. Technology is rewriting our world. This is the conversation about what we keep and what we change. We talk about AI, leadership, and humanity. Not in theory, but in how they shape our everyday lives. Every week, we will...

talk about the intersection of technology, leadership and purpose, and the values, meaning and impact that are really shaping humanity as we know it. Today, I'm very excited. I'm joined by Renard Henry, the head of IT at Toyota Connected. Renard Henry, he's a technology executive, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, and thought leader at the intersection of IT and leadership.

As an IT leader at Toyota Connect in North America, he leads innovation initiatives that drive digital transformation and business impact. Beyond the boardroom, Renard also brings the discipline, humility, and resilience learned on the mats into his leadership philosophy, mentoring the next generation of IT professionals and also executives. He's also the co-host

of Black Belts and Boardrooms, a podcast about where martial arts principle meets corporate strategy, featuring conversations with leaders, athletes, and change makers. One more time, welcome, Rernard. I'm very pleased and honored to have you with us on the show.

Renard Henry (01:50.797)
Yeah, same here. Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this one. I'm excited to have this conversation.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (01:58.157)
Perfect, great. So we're all going to be talking about really how do you see, right? And how do we see the role of the IT leader of the future, basically, with everything happening today, especially with how AI is accelerating changes and disrupting many things around technology.

businesses and humanity overall. I would like to start with a few questions, right? Just to see once we get there. So if we remove the title, who is Renard at his core?

Renard Henry (02:41.967)
Man, that's a good question. For me, you you removed the title. I am just a kid from New Orleans, Louisiana. Lived there all my life for about 25 years until Hurricane Katrina hit. And then I moved to Dallas. So you're talking about, you know, it takes a village to raise a child. It took a village to raise me with my mom, my grandfather, know, uncle, et cetera, all raised me and, know.

Got a chance to see a lot in different venues being back home in New Orleans, but moved to Dallas in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina and been here ever since. So I've had 25 years in IT and 20 years here in Dallas. So I'm just a person who loves the conversation, love getting to know people and of course love Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It is a big, big part of my life.

that I enjoy. Outside of that, I have a 28 year old son who followed in my footsteps in the tech. He's in tech right now starting his career, which it was very humbling to see him decide to go into tech. So, you know, when he told me, I shed a little tear around the corner because I was humbled and shocked that he wanted to go in there, but he is doing so well. So it also pushes me to continue to do.

great things in tech just to show him that, you know, he has a future and see where that path will lay him. Besides that, I'll be getting married in a couple of weeks to my awesome fiance. She is definitely, thank you, thank you, she is definitely my best friend. Lover to death, looking forward to getting married to her in a couple of weeks. But just overall, just love life. Understanding that life is short.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (04:19.519)
Congratulations.

Renard Henry (04:35.141)
We got to stop procrastinating. For some reason we had this illusion that we have so much time and that we need to take those moments with family and friends and cherish that. Because eventually, like all of us, our time will be up at some point. So it's best to enjoy it as much as possible and spend time with family and friends. So outside of my professional life, that is me in a nutshell.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (05:00.523)
That's awesome. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing with us. And I'm glad to see that your son is kind of following your steps. No pressure at all, right? Being a role model, means you kind of rethink a lot of things, right? Because you have that next generation of hopefully future leaders within the family. So that's great to hear. That's great to hear. And you know, when we think about Renard's

Renard Henry (05:08.485)
I'm sorry.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (05:31.295)
the legacy role of IT that has always been keeping the lights on, and it still is in many ways, but we have seen IT transforming, right? From just keeping the lights on as to more as strategic partners to the business, right, that we serve. So can you tell us a little bit how that shift happened? What time during your career you stopped only being focused on keeping the lights on?

and just more into working to be the strategic partners that your business partners needed, for example.

Renard Henry (06:09.605)
Yeah. So I think you hit on a key point that IT used to be the keeps on keep the lights on team. Over time, if people have noticed that more and more business need technology, nowadays that business cannot function without technology. If you're talking about a restaurant, if it's a POS system, if you're just talking about business in general, tech is needed in order for the business to keep running for now.

For now, you know, there was a point, you know, 20, 30 something years ago where, you know, people use tech somewhat, but now a business cannot function with that. So the, the IT department or the IT team has become a strategic partner for every business. We're, we're the team that people come to to understand if this is the right technology that needs to come in for the business or how is it going to affect the business long-term.

So for me, of course, like many others, I started off as a IC, an individual contributor when I started in my career. And it took me seeing other great leaders for me to want to go into management and then go into leadership because I always say there's a difference between the two. So I always tell people if you want to go into management or leadership, the seat is hot in a sense because your success does not...

It's not on you anymore. It's on the team. So you want to have a great team around you knowing that they can be leaders themselves and continue to do successful things for the business. So it's a thought you have to go through. Like, you willing to lead a team? Is that team willing to accept you as their leader? Cause it goes both ways. So during my career, when I worked at Lehigh Hanson, I had a great, great manager.

His name's Kent Pillop. passed years ago, but when I saw him and the way he leaded the way he leaded us, that got me into wanting to do management. So over time, I had to understand what the difference was between management and leadership. The great thing about when you see great mentors, even if they don't know the mentors, you get to see the good and the bad. So I've seen great leaders and I've seen some terrible ones, but I always looked at it like, I don't want to do what they do.

Renard Henry (08:30.713)
You learn from even the bad ones like, okay, I'm not going to do that when I get to, to that level. So understanding leadership and creating other leaders has been a life goal for me. Once I got into leadership, I was like, I want to see other great leaders. you know, it can eventually my time I'm going to retire or, whatever's going to happen. I want to continue that cycle of great leaders either at the company I'm with now.

Or if they go to another company, I want to be part of that small part of their journey that goes along in their careers. So being a leader, I think takes a lot of passion. Um, it's be more than just, got to see what the numbers are going to be, but understanding strategically for the business. And that's the mindset change. When you're a manager, you're just worrying about the department for the most part. What are we going to achieve as a department? When you become a leader, you become more business minded, more strategic.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (09:19.432)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (09:26.255)
How are we going to see the business grow from a technology standpoint in the next three to five years? How are we going to do that? How's the budget going to look? How are we going to have these conversations with the executives when they decide, hey, we want to bring in AI. They're going to talk to the IT department. They're going to talk to your InfoSec team to try and understand what's going to make the right choice for the business, but also how to mitigate risk when we bring this in. So there's many differences in

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (09:40.712)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (09:55.457)
leadership and management. And don't get me wrong. I've seen some great managers and I've seen some great leaders who I've got to take a lot from throughout my career. So I think you have to understand if you're going to be at that level, if you're going to be an executive, if you're going to want to sit at that table and help make those decisions, you're going to have to be more business minded, more strategic. You're going to have to understand every part of the business.

It's just not going to be the IT department. That's the only thing I understand. That's the only thing I know. It's got to be, I need to understand what the business goal is. You know, what's our mission? What's our vision? It's talking to your CEO. It's talking to the other executives. Sometimes it's even talking to the other departments to understand the strategy of the business and how from a technology standpoint, we can contribute to that. So yeah, to keep the lights on.

That that that's far from, from where any IT department is anymore. I remember those times. I remember, you know, you keep the lights on, you're making sure the internet runs, et cetera. And don't get me wrong. That still happens. That's your day to day work that you're making sure you're making sure internet works, making sure the computers work servers, et cetera. Yeah, that's your day to day. But when you're sitting at a strategic standpoint, a strategic vision, that's a totally different vision. You have the greatest team in the world.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (11:03.527)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (11:19.821)
making sure the day-to-day runs. It's your job to make sure that you're part of that vision. You're part of that strategic partnership with the business to keep the business flowing, keep the business growing, and keep the business moving forward. One of the biggest things I always tell people, and someone taught me this, the two things you need to know when you get into leadership and you get to the executive level, and is to increase growth and mitigate risk. If you can master those two things,

you can become a great leader and a great executive.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (11:51.784)
Yeah, absolutely. You touched into so many good points and for people that are going to be watching this that I think is extremely important. There's nothing wrong between being an IC, which is an individual contributor or being in leadership, right? There are people that are very good at what they do, very technical, right? And we need those people and we will continue to need these people. But when you're planning to get into the more into the leadership side of things like a manager and then directors and then you name it, of course,

Renard Henry (12:13.157)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (12:21.336)
The whole thing changes. It's not about you doing the work anymore. It's about you getting the best out of the people reporting to you to achieve those goals that the business needs us to achieve. It's trying to make people work together in a way that is efficient and everybody going into that same direction.

it make things a little bit more complicated because it's now it's not only about what you deliver, but it's about what your team of people, of human beings need to deliver together as a whole. Which we know it makes things a little bit more complicated. But if you are passionate about what you do as a leader, then you should be able to get the best out of your people to deliver what you need to. Right. And that comes with

understanding what people's goals are. And as you said, right, building the next generation of leaders. That's for me, it's the most special part of being on leadership is having the opportunity to develop people in a way that you see them grow to the best version of themselves, right? Even if they are not going to become leaders, but they can become better human beings and better

individual contributors. I think that's an opportunity that every single leader should really appreciate having that opportunity to serve our people and to develop the best of in them. yeah, great.

Renard Henry (13:58.277)
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that whole Hartley. And the thing about it, you don't have to be an executive in order to be a leader. You can be an IC and be a leader. Like you said, we need great ICs. We need great managers. We need great executives, et cetera. Those are the people who eventually on boards who are, who are helping other companies, like you say, bringing the next person up is part of that.

that job description that, you don't, you don't see for the most part, it's not on your job description, but creating other leaders is something that you, you want to do and that you enjoy doing. Like I love my job. I enjoy it. I get up every single day, which is rare for a lot of people. I get up every day and I'm happy to go to work because I get to work with some of the best people in the world. I get to work with my team and I get to see someone who

didn't start off doing programming. And now all of a sudden there's a programming genius. And it's because I had to push them a little bit because I saw greatness in them. And that's what I love. You have to be a coach in a sense, you know, you're not only, like I said, you're doing the risk and the growth, et cetera. You become a coach. He was like, man, I see greatness in you. And I know you don't see it in yourself yet, but I see it. So I'm going to push you a little bit. It's going to get uncomfortable for you. But then all of sudden you see it and they get it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (15:01.934)
Mm-hmm. Right?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (15:12.88)
Yes.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (15:21.316)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (15:24.037)
And he'd be like, man, you know, compared to where I was a year ago, two years ago, I'm like, yeah, you're not the same person. I said the same thing for myself.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (15:29.946)
Yeah. And that's that's usually what happened when you take people out of their comfort zones. And at the beginning, you know, people, human beings, we are against changes, right? We are we don't accept changes. A lot of people don't accept changes naturally. And so when you show people that there is a way of doing things and at the beginning, they may not see it, but then medium long term, they start noticing, hey,

Renard Henry (15:36.773)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (15:59.498)
And this was the right thing. That's a beautiful thing to to witness. Right. And like you said, we become coaches, we become psychologists, right? Because it's a lot of also talking about our people and on one on ones on having people to grow and helping them to go through some sometimes personal challenges that comes also with with the job of being leader. So there is a lot of things that we do as leaders. And but it's.

It's a beautiful thing when you witness people growing and people growing to a place that they may not believe or they may not want to get there. And then they say, OK, you were right. Look, look where I am now. yeah, absolutely. Perfect. Renard. So. Let's talk about AI, right? It's the topic that.

Renard Henry (16:51.461)
Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (16:56.578)
We all talk every day. And one of the main pillars and one of the reasons why this podcast exists, it's because I saw an opportunity to bring this topic in a way that we may not see it every day, which is basically understanding from people like you, how do you see AI impacting or reshaping the roles of the future?

And especially during this episode, we are discussing the IT leader of the future. So how do you see with all things happening around AI today and that we will continue to see in the next two years, how do you see the role of the IT leader of the CIO, right?

in a way that embraces AI and with all the AI transformation happening in the next two years. Where are we heading? Where the CIO of the future will be in two years from now.

Renard Henry (18:04.389)
That's a, that's a great question. And let me take a step back from, from AI before I talk about that. AI was something what maybe a couple of years ago, people talked about, but it really wasn't there. Now you have more businesses being created around AI. Everyone is, is talking, if they're not talking about it, they're working on it right now. Every single company. If you go to Slack, you know, et cetera, they have their own AI component.

et cetera. So all these businesses are looking towards the future in AI because it's, it's not going anywhere. So it comes down to something simple. Either you embrace AI or you're to get passed over. That's, that's what's going to happen to your executive leader. And that's not just CIO. That's every part of executive leadership. AI right now is going to take care of some low hanging fruit for you right now. That that's its job right now.

it's, it's taking everything that you give it far as data and then coming up with answers for you for the most part. So it will take some repetitive tasks. It will take the low hanging fruit. But to me in the next two or three years, we're going to see new jobs come around because of that. New titles are going to happen. AI governance is going to be big in the next two years. AI governance is going to be severe because you're going to need someone in order to put.

guardrails around AI, especially if you're to bring it into a corporate business or any business, because you, need to have guardrails because you need to make sure all of a sudden that your data is not going out into the public and that you're, you're having guardrails around it, making sure that only sees what you need it to see. And it's only going to input out information to certain levels in that team or in that company that they only need visibility. If you think about it.

if you're working in HR, you don't need access to finance, you know, you don't need access to the financial and vice versa. Finance doesn't need access to, to all the HR information. Same thing for, for IT. I don't need information for the financial. So if I'm going to use AI and ask it to do a query for me, it shouldn't come up with financial information for people who work at the company. It shouldn't. So that's where your guardrails come from.

Renard Henry (20:22.469)
So I think what's going to happen is for the most part from an executive level, the CIO, the CTO, honestly, you should be trying to get a hold of AI as much as possible. You should be growing with AI while AI is growing and evolving. You need to be doing the same exact thing. You need to take a hold of it and say, I need to learn every bit as I can to understand it. So now when you start having those meetings again with the executive team,

And you start sitting in the boardroom. Now you can start talking about AI from a strategic standpoint, because I know for a fact, every single fortune 500, fortune thousand, whatever that company is, is already sitting in the rooms talking about AI and how they're going to be able to use it. So you need to grab a hold of that as much as possible. Cause once again, if you don't, someone else is going to take your seat a hundred percent. They're going to be like, Hey, you're not trying to grasp it. We will bring somebody else in.

who's already familiar with it. What's gonna happen, and I've talked about this previously, another thing that's gonna happen is higher level jobs become available because all the low hanging fruit are taken. So that means now when you go to college, it's gonna be more around AI than anything else. When you're going to college, you're getting your degrees, you're not gonna be like, okay, we're gonna show you the basics and then you work your way up. We're already gonna have to be at that level already when we go into college and when we graduate.

in order to be able to get these jobs because the normal thing that we went to college for, say the past 10, 15, even 20 years is not going to technically exist for you to do anymore. AI is going to take care of that. So once again, it's being prepared, understanding what's going to be the next, like you say, two years, the next three, the next 10. We have quantum computing easily about to come around the corner.

We have to be prepared for that. I made an analogy that if you ever watch Star Trek, Star Trek is heavily AI, heavily computerized. That's the level eventually we will get to. Not saying that Star Trek is reality because it's not, but the techniques of AI and what technology does in the future is what we are evolving to. The job is to make sure that we have AI governance.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (22:36.396)
Brian.

Renard Henry (22:48.483)
That someone is always making sure that we are moving in the right direction for the business and also being a strategic partner around AI for the business as well. So you're to have a two-step protocol, but outside of just business, that means that everyone who's going to college is going to be around AI in some aspect. It has to be because AI isn't going anywhere. This is not a fad. This isn't something that's going to disappear anytime soon.

We're already talking about autonomous vehicles already. People are already making them. People are already building them. So yeah, robots are already being done already. So it's just understanding of how we are as humans and how we advance so fast that it's going to move pretty fast. you think about, you know, of course I grew up in the nineties. So I'm saying my age a little bit of how old I am, but

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (23:19.594)
Robots, right? Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (23:39.937)
Thanks

Renard Henry (23:41.103)
from the nineties until now, technology moved so fast. We went from dial-up to broadband to, you know, how the internet is now, fiber, et cetera. That is actually a pretty fast transformation compared to how we were in the nineties and how we are now. Most vehicles that we have, we're just talking about cars, are mostly computerized technologies in the vehicle. And that wasn't the case if you're talking about from the nineties.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (23:45.227)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (23:55.402)
It is.

Renard Henry (24:09.647)
but you see how fast it moved. I remember when vehicles did not have backup cameras. Now every vehicle that is built has a backup camera, has a camera that sees the overall view of the vehicle, what's on the side of it, what's in front of it, et cetera. And we were at a point that it didn't do that at all. So understanding that technology moves pretty fast. We are...

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (24:11.89)
Yes.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (24:16.127)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (24:37.391)
people who want to see advancements in things. And it's just not AI, it's just, you know, if you want to go to planes, et cetera. So I see in the next two years, like I said, the CIO, the CTO roles, the executive roles are going to change because it's going to be more focused on how AI is going to help the business. How are we going to be faster? How are we going to be more agile? That's what AI will bring. It will continue to be a helper for us, but it will give us access

and openings to do more higher level jobs going forward.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (25:11.105)
Yeah, you touched into many good points and I share with you the acceleration of AI and we have seen disruptive technologies and landmark through our history with the Industrial Revolution, With the digital revolution in the 80s, then broadbands, email. every time a new technology such as this and AI, for example, comes, they are all

going to be always disruptive by nature. But what I'm seeing with AI is the acceleration, the speed and to how things are evolving. It's so fast that I don't think I've seen this in the past. And I was talking to a friend the other day and I was telling, I feel like with AI, with everything happening in a day by day basis, it feels like a car going on a cliff without any brakes working right now, right? Because it's so fast. Every day we have a new

a new thing coming out, right? We are not talking about how to build infrastructure here in the US, right? Because every time, and people don't think about what happens in the backend, every time you're using a model, it's energy that is consuming, and it's a lot of energy. And the US is not ready to evolve with the grid that we have because it will require a lot more than what we can produce as far as energy. But

But back to the CIO and the CTO of the future, I'm seeing this heading is the challenges that people in leadership roles, right, at that executive level will have on balancing the efficiency gains into the humanity of our people, right? And how are we going to be able to kind of put in a balance?

Renard Henry (27:00.856)
and

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (27:08.04)
What is it, well, we need a human still doing the job versus what is it that AI will take over? Because it cannot be just replacing by replacing, right? Because at the end of the day, we're still humans and we still need our people. But to balance that against business goals and advance efficiency gains is something that I keep thinking.

keep thinking because what is it that it will be enough? How much efficiency gain will be enough for us to be satisfied? Because the more we like the speed of the efficiency that we are gaining with this, the more we want, right? The more we are running processes and automating process, we can do this very fast than, you know, maybe what it was taking a week before.

So, and the more we enjoy that, the more we want to bring that to our daily operations, right, and our businesses. So, when I think about that as well, I think about how is it that we, as leaders, are we going to balance? is it that it's going to be the need for humans versus really automations or AI or machines really doing the job, right?

And that's where it becomes the reinvention part of we human beings, we really need to reinvent ourselves. Because AI is here, as you were saying, and it didn't start today. This has been years in the making. It shows us accelerating this year, especially so fast. But we really need to reinvent ourselves. And you talk about a very good point that I would like us to

Renard Henry (28:50.489)
Thanks.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (29:03.519)
to continue to go down that path for the people going to college today that may be starting something that a job that may not be needed in the future due to AI, right? I'm curious to see what do you think are those skills that no matter what you are starting today, you need to start thinking about, right? Of course, embracing AI.

for you to reinvent yourself in the future. And it doesn't matter if you are studying, if you get out of college, you can be a professional and working today, but we all need to reinvent ourselves. What are those skills that you think are needed today and tomorrow due to AI?

Renard Henry (29:53.573)
I think one of the main things and look at AI, someone has to program in order to create AI. But now we're getting into the revolution of low code, no code. So I'm worried about programmers for the most part. Right now, AI is not, AI can check certain things right now when it comes to programming, but he can't sit there and develop and hold code, hold scripts, et cetera.

So that right now, that's one of the main things I'm worried about when it comes to technology that coding in some aspect is going to not necessarily go away, but it's going to become a lot easier for code. remember when, when you used to have to really know how to code, if that was SQL oracle, now you know, have Python, et cetera, but now we're getting into this thing. If you talk about N8N, the low code, no code.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (30:47.965)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (30:49.637)
programming now that that is the big thing they're trying to make coding easier for anyone in order to use in order to get some repetitive tasks done, you know, connect other things. So that is where the area I am worried about. But like you said, people need to evolve. We're to have to evolve from that because we're going to have to change and transform once we say, okay, AI is taking this then what's next. That's where everybody should be looking.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (31:16.05)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (31:18.345)
If they went to college in order, now they're doing app dev, et cetera. What's next after this? How can I still make myself valuable for business, even though AI has taken this on? And I have seen very, very resilient people, humans in general, or resilient for the most part. If something has been taken away, they will figure out another way in order to keep themselves valuable.

keep me able to feed their families, et cetera, whatever that may be. But from a college standpoint, that's what I see. I don't see AI all of a sudden taking a therapist's job. I don't see that. I think we love human interaction. If I need to go to therapy, I want to have another human being sitting there and having a conversation.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (32:04.957)
Even though there's a lot of people already using Shaji PT and other as their therapist.

Renard Henry (32:12.537)
Yeah, I think that they, that's where you get into. People don't understand like chat. GBT isn't a therapist for you. It is just, it's just searching through the internet in order to give you an answer. It's not really understanding you as a person. if you have one of the, and we're talking about chat GBT, if you have one of the paid subscriptions, it's just remembering every single thing that you fed it. That's what it's doing. So it needs information. You couldn't just go on there.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (32:20.861)
Exactly.

Renard Henry (32:42.595)
day one and say, my name is this. Tell me what you know about me. The first thing it's going to do is go search the internet and see what it can pull. It does not know you. It doesn't know your background. Doesn't know your history. Doesn't know your family history, et cetera, in order to understand you. That's you feeding it information in order for it to start understanding, connecting dots in order to start giving you answers. So yeah, I don't think you should use AI as your therapist.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (32:49.67)
Right.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (33:11.651)
I wouldn't recommend it either, no.

Renard Henry (33:12.931)
Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that. I wouldn't recommend it. That's not going to give you the answers that you want. If you're just looking for a cheap solution, go talk to one of your friends. It's free. You don't, you don't need that.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (33:23.353)
It's like people that uses Google search, for example, to see if the results of a blood test is cancer or something else. mean, people, that's, you don't do that. The same thing as you say with shot GPT, you don't use shot GPT for that type of thing, for example, or any of those models, right? You go, you continue to go to a therapist for sure. Yeah.

Renard Henry (33:34.009)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Renard Henry (33:48.259)
You do same thing if you, if we want to talk about the medical field, there's certain things that AI already helps out in the medical field when it comes to certain surgeries, et cetera. the techniques they're using, we've come a long way when it comes to just, medicine in, in operations, et cetera. I forgot where I read there, there's hospitals that use nothing but AI far as getting medicine to certain rooms, et cetera. But that that's low hanging fruit.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (34:16.347)
Right.

Renard Henry (34:16.815)
That's the low hanging fruit that we talk about, but I don't see AI taking over a doctor's job. You know, when you want to go see the doctor, et cetera, I don't think that I think you still need that human interaction. So it's, think people need to sit and really understand even from, even if you're not in tech, understand where AI makes sense and where AI doesn't. Like you said, you shouldn't be using chat GPT as your therapist.

All it is, is giving you answers of information that you already fed it. That's not a real conscience answer to the question that you're answering. That's a bunch of information that you fed it over time and it's just giving you an answer, looking at the history that you gave it, but that doesn't mean that's the right answer for it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (35:01.98)
Yep, absolutely. I can't agree more. We all need to take these old like any new technology, right? Just embrace them for what they are, not for what we want them to be. Right. Because we as human beings, sometimes we tend to turn everything into what we want that to be. Right. And it happens from human beings to human beings as well. Now you have to embrace it for what the technology is.

understanding its limitations and where the technology is today, for sure. Yeah, very interesting, Renard. Let's talk a little bit about following the same topic of skills needed for the future, how we all need to reinvent ourselves. When you look at IT or technology function as a whole right now and the shift

that it's needed to in order to embrace AI. What would be your recommendation for those companies really looking to getting to AI, right? Trying to see how AI can help their businesses, right? What would be one piece of advice for those companies on how to approach from the leadership side of things?

Renard Henry (36:28.889)
Well, for me, this is something I've talked about previously, we got to understand what's your reason you want to bring AI in. What are you trying to achieve in the long, in the short term and long term with AI bringing it to the company? Because the thing you worry about is that everybody loves the brand new toy. Everybody loves the brand new toy. There's so many...

AI agents now there's so many going on. Everybody just wants to bring everything in, but then the question goes, it's a simple question. What are we trying to achieve if we bring it in? That's, that's something that the business needs to know under understanding that they want to bring AI in. And that's needs to be the main question anyone needs to ask. What are we trying to achieve if we bring this into the business? What, are we trying to do with it? If not, then you're just opening yourself up.

to a lot of issues in the longterm. If you don't have, once again, if you're not talking to, you know, your CIO, your CISO and having those conversations from just not a strategy standpoint from where IT is going to be, but also where are we going to be security and governance from it? So the business, it's our job as your CIO, CTO, CISO is to make sure the business understand what's going to be the risk.

If we bring all this in and what are we going to benefit from it? But the business itself needs to say, Hey, you know, I want to bring in AI, you know, just, just a certain application, whatever that's going to be. And what do we need to do from a technology standpoint in order to make sure that our information, our data is secure. And also the next question from a tech standpoint, okay, you're asking me this, what are we trying to achieve if we bring this in?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (38:21.989)
Right. What's the problem you're trying to solve, right? That should be our starting point always. Not the tool, not the application, but the problem to solve.

Renard Henry (38:23.129)
But it will... Yes, yes.

Renard Henry (38:31.225)
Correct, correct, because there's so many tools out there. We just can't sit there and say, okay, I'm gonna bring all these in. There you go, we'll figure it out from there. What are we trying to achieve by bringing this in? And then IT and the technology teams can start delving into that. okay, you gave me this, I found out the information I need. Now I can go see what's gonna meet this question that you're asking. What's gonna meet this mission that we're trying to achieve with it.

and go from there. if you're if your answer is, well, everyone else is doing it, that's not the right answer for your business. Everybody else is doing AI, so we should too. But what are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to achieve for that for the short term and the long term? Because once we bring it in, like anything else, it's going to be hard to remove.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (39:18.922)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And like I've seen many companies also, I've seen companies going to more conservative approach, right? Try it first, then we'll see others embracing without doing their due diligence, right? Especially on data governance and privacy, that I think it's a very hot topic nowadays, because many of these AIs...

the data may be living in the cloud and for organizations, you don't want that to happen. So I think it's extremely important. Tech leaders pay a lot of attention of data governance and privacy moving forward because it's not about just embracing AI. We need to think about what's happening with the data, right? Which for organizations, it's kind of the most valuable asset, right? Your IP, your data.

all those type of things that are extremely important. Yeah.

Renard Henry (40:22.757)
This is the same question we had, we went from having everything in-house for our servers, and then we went to SaaS after that. It's the same exact question, the same thing for, like you said, your own server farm at your business, and then we went to the cloud. And I always put quotations out because all it is is another server farm sitting somewhere else, it's just not sitting in your office. But it's the same questions that happened in these different steps of evolution when it came to tech.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (40:31.609)
Mm-hmm.

Renard Henry (40:51.395)
Now most, companies are trying to be a SaaS shop. They, they want their offices to be more like a we work. So if the building blows up, we keep still operating that that's the change. Even if you're just talking about your IT department, IT departments used to be these gigantic teams, know, 60, 70 people on a team. Now most IT teams are agile. They're very small.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (41:01.836)
Right.

Renard Henry (41:17.807)
People do multiple jobs in order to get things done. So the same evolution when we come to AI, it's going to be the same thing. And the question for each and every one of those evolutions has been, what are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to do for the business? Does this make sense?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (41:34.292)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I cannot agree more. What is the problem? And that's where the conversation starts. The problem to solve always. In that same line of thinking, what would be a piece of advice that you would give today to individuals, human beings that are just going

on with their lives. Some of them, a lot of people that I know, and I know there's a lot of people out there that they are not even using any AI today. And I see that as a concern because it's, as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, there are going to be people using AI that probably are going to be the one keeping their jobs against those that are not using AI or don't even know how to use it.

What would be a piece of advice to those listening and watching us today and in the future about embracing AI?

Renard Henry (42:45.443)
Thank you. said the, the, what, what I would say to anybody you need to embrace, you need to have an open mind when it comes to any new technology, anything you need to be open minded to, you need to understand that the landscape is changing. what worked 10 years ago doesn't work now. Work, work 20 years ago, then work 10 years ago. So you need to understand that far as technology concerned, the tech, the landscape changes very fast and you need to.

get on board or you will get passed up or you need to make the decision. I'm going to do something else because there's always going to be someone who doesn't like change. It's uncomfortable for me. And I get it. I think we're all uncomfortable in some type of way, even if it's outside of tech, we get a uncomfortable. but it's understanding that in order for me as a person who wants to keep growing in technology, wants to continue to get better.

I need to be understanding the latest and greatest stuff that comes out. I need to understand what the future looks like. I need to do my due diligence in order to understand what's going to happen with not just AI. When we get the quantum computing, et cetera, what's the landscape of technology in general going to look like? So I can be prepared to start having those conversations early with any business because I tell anybody I said, it's no longer you being

Um, focus just on the department. You need to be business minded going forward. And it doesn't matter if you're an individual contributor or if you're an executive, I tell anybody on my team in when it comes to even the ICs that I have, say, you got to understand when something goes wrong, doesn't just affect an individual. It affects the entire business. So if yeah, up and down. if the CEO has an issue.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (44:35.585)
Cascades all the way up and down. Yeah.

Renard Henry (44:40.611)
It doesn't just affect him. affects the entire business because he can't do his job because something is not working for him. So it's the same mindset we have to have just in general when AI and any new technology comes along. It's like, okay, I need to get ahead of this because someone I know was going to ask me about how is this going to be able to be used for our business to make us faster, stronger, and be ahead of the curve even before it starts settling down. So.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (44:42.155)
Yeah.

Renard Henry (45:08.899)
That's, that's what I would tell anybody. It's be prepared for the next evolution in tech because what we're doing now is going to be totally different in the way we do in the next 10 years, the next 20 years, et cetera. The previous jobs are going to be start becoming a history lesson. after a while of jobs that no longer exist anymore. We see, we've seen that our entire lives that certain jobs that were happening, let's say in the 1980s, some of them don't even exist anymore.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (45:39.126)
Yeah, absolutely.

Renard Henry (45:39.669)
Same thing's gonna happen. Yeah, same thing's gonna happen. So be prepared. That's what I would tell anybody. Be prepared. Always be ready.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (45:47.594)
Yeah, it's imperative for all of us to start using AI, to use AI, to continue to embrace AI. How we're going to keep ourselves as being valuable to the business in the future, will require, it will demand you using AI, right? Because everybody else will be using it and you will need to be at that same level.

Renard Henry (46:06.607)
Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (46:15.825)
of operational efficiency if you want to keep being consistent and being valuable to the business. So it is, yes, it is an imperative that we all, if we want to keep ourselves valuable, AI will be part of that. Absolutely. A piece of advice, Renard, for those startups or even the big tech company developing AI today.

What would you tell OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, or even a startups working in AI? What would be a piece of advice to them in a way that they still think about human beings in the process of designing and developing and implementing these AI solutions in the future?

Renard Henry (47:09.389)
I would, I would definitely say, make sure that, that the human part of any business, it's still moving forward with the company. we talked about earlier that certain jobs, certain tasks will be taken from AI, but another part of you running a company is the make sure that the people are getting elevated as well. They're moving along with the company while the company definitely changes for the most part. It's.

The, if you think about because of AI, it's a human who created AI at the end of the day. AI didn't just create AI. It's a humans who decided, Hey, we wanted to achieve something different quantum computing that is coming. Humans created that. So you need to understand that the human part is still going to be part of technology. No matter what, um, where we're bringing AI in to make us more efficient, to make us faster, to, to actually.

In a sense, make us a little bit smarter in a sense, um, to get us to start opening our minds to other avenues that technology can help us with. So for any business, regardless of it's a fortune 500 or startup, remember that the human part is a big part of the business. It's not just the technology, even though yes, every business cannot function without technology. The human part is the biggest part that we need to make sure that we keep as humans evolving.

and growing with the business knowing that things are going to change on a regular basis.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (48:44.532)
Great point, great point. Can agree more. And what would be one piece of advice to policymakers and governance, right? When it comes to safeguards on data privacy, for example, and ethical issues that we are starting to see with the acceleration of AI.

Renard Henry (49:08.581)
thing from an AI, you honestly, you just stated AI governance is, a huge, huge thing that people need to make sure. I think you see a lot of businesses say, man, I want, I want the new toy. We're going to bring it in, but they forget about, okay, we got to put guardrails on this thing. What information it does have access to. If we're talking about anything in healthcare, HIPAA is, is big and we have to make sure data is secure. So if you're bringing it in.

Your InfoSec team, your CISO, et cetera, is a big part of making sure that data is not being leaked out to the public, to other companies, et cetera. So once again, if you're a startup or if you're a Fortune 500 company, your data is one of the most important things in the world that you do not want leaked out. So you need to make sure that your CISO AI governance is tight.

The ship has to be ready to go when you decide, okay, we're going to put this out. We've had those conversations with our CIO or CISO, the InfoSec team, to make sure that we're secure. So when we hit the button and that data goes into AI, we are protected as a whole for the business. That's one of the most important things. think if you just bring AI in and you're not thinking about AI governance, you are in a world of trouble.

Once all that information is like, which we have already seen, we've seen many companies using a chat, CPT and putting their information in and all of sudden what happened? It got leaked out to the public. You had, you need those guardrails have to be so important. And that's not just for the day. That's going to be going years on end. I'm going forward just how AI is going to evolve AI governance is one of the major things. If you look at it.

AI governance technically isn't a job title yet, but in the next two to three years it will be. People will go to school just to get a degree around AI governance.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (51:13.139)
I'm sure we're going to see a lot more of that. And I'm already starting seeing some movement on the governance, right? Not only here in the US, but also Europe, China talking about global standards, right? For AI privacy. So I'm happy to see that that's a broader concern. And it should be, right? Because sometimes company needs to follow the laws. But if the laws does not exist,

Renard Henry (51:28.377)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (51:42.673)
then it's a no man's land in a way. So that's where governance are kind of spending more and more time trying to come and see if they can come up with some global standards. Because I think data privacy and governance, it's going to continue to be a very, very, very important topic for all of us. Last but not least, Renard, what is one piece of advice that you would give your younger self? Right?

Or that future and next generations coming behind us when they're looking at what's happening today and what will happen in the future. What would that be?

Renard Henry (52:25.111)
man, I've thought about this for a while and I think I've told people and this is outside of technology. which what I wish I knew when I started was the power of connections, building relationships over time in your professional career. I really wish I knew that. I'd, I'd be honest. I just started that a couple of years ago about really building professional connections. And I've seen.

the return on investment and not just saying this professional thing, you actually get some great friends in your professional network who actually become true friends for you. And it was something I wish I knew when I started, you know, when you just get out of college and you just start, you were like, man, I just got to work hard. Eventually I'll start building those connections. And I wonder if I would have built them starting off in my career, how fast my career would have moved a little bit differently.

And I will tell anybody if you're already seasoned already, and if you're just starting, build those connections because I've learned through those connections that people watch you throughout your career. They might not say anything. They might not, you know, say, but they're watching you and all of a sudden you start getting a little tap on your shoulder from somebody you interacted with 10 to 15 years ago. And they'll tell you, man, I've been watching your career. I might have an opportunity for you because I've seen how you grew over your career.

So that is one thing I will tell anybody. The power of connections is a great thing in your professional and in your personal life. So make sure you start building those day one in your career because you never know over time who has been watching your career and may all of sudden bring that opportunity that you've been waiting for.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (54:10.534)
Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for that. That's such a valuable advice, right? And it remains kind of current in a way because connections are really a lot of what will happen to you. It depends on the connections that you make, right? Because life is not perfect, right? Opportunities are not perfect. And sometimes it's about the people that you know, right?

that will be your supporters and will help you to move forward. So I cannot agree with you more that that will continue to be kind of a very valuable advice as we move forward into the future with AI. So with that being said, Renard, really thank you for your time, all right, your insights and for laying your humanity here with us on the show. This has been a very

extremely and great conversations. And I really appreciate your time today.

Renard Henry (55:13.519)
Yeah, no, thank you for having me. I've enjoyed this. I'm looking forward to seeing more more episodes of your podcast. So thank you for having me.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL PODCAST (55:23.419)
Great, great. Thank you. And for those of you that are watching, if this sparked something on you, the episode, follow us on Instagram, YouTube and Spotify. This is the Human Protocol, right? We're going to have an episode every week. So remember, someone has to write the human stories in times of AI. And this is what this show and what this podcast is about.

So thank you all for your time and we'll see you next time. Thank you.