Ep 65: From Pilots to P&L:

QuantumBlack’s CEO on building AI-ready banks

Listen on your favorite platforms

This episode of Money Majlis dives into how banks and regulators can finally break out of “pilot purgatory” and turn AI from hype into hard P&L impact, with one of the world’s most influential applied AI leaders, Alexander Sukharevsky, CEO of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey.

Drawing on his global work with financial institutions, sovereigns and regulators, Alexander explains why 88 percent of organisations say they use AI yet only a tiny fraction see more than 20 percent EBITDA uplift, and what it really takes to move that needle.

Across our conversation, Alexander lays out a concrete playbook for banks: focus on a few high value domains instead of scattered use cases, reinvent customer journeys and legacy processes end to end, and build the “human stack” of leaders and bankers who can speak the language of AI without needing to be data scientists. We unpack lessons from Rewired 2.0, his updated McKinsey playbook on how leading firms win with technology, and go inside case studies like DBS to show how a traditional bank can become a data driven, AI ready organisation without derailing business as usual performance.

Alexander also offers a candid assessment of where the GCC and UAE are genuinely ahead of the curve: ambition, speed, bold AI investment, and where execution still lags, from fragmented pilots to under invested data and architecture foundations. He demystifies “agentic AI”, imagines organisations where human and virtual team members work side by side, and explains why CEOs must personally become chief product and transformation officers, spending time in the “machine room” instead of watching AI from the boardroom.

Along the way, Alexander tackles regulation and digital trust, the future of work, and what great bankers will look like in 2030, before sharing his own leadership journey from building two businesses from scratch to scaling QuantumBlack into a multi thousand person AI practice born in Formula 1 and now reshaping banking worldwide.

Produced by : Poddster
Giving partner : Goodworld

Visit moneymajlis.com to join our giving movement and get your USD 50 complimentary GiveCard.

Share:

Please visit give.moneymajlis.com to redeem your free gift card of $50 to contribute to a charity of your choice. Thank you for joining my giving movement.