Nicoleta Onuta turns dreams into reality as the team lead for the AI Center of Excellence at DLL, fueling the company’s innovation strategy with a focus on data science.

Nicoleta Onuta says that innovation is a dream made possible, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be structure. A leader in a community of game changers at DLL, Onuta heads up the team for the company’s AI Center of Excellence. Within this data science laboratory, Onuta and her team members run a “powerful execution engine” that quickly moves ideas from concept to implementation while utilizing a staged process with strict governance in place. In this way, the end result is what Onuta calls “responsible AI by design.”

One of the most recent innovations Onuta has helped spearhead at DLL is a newly launched solution called Cognitive Agent, an intelligent algorithm used at the lease origination stage to evaluate an applicant’s creditworthiness and automatically provide a credit decision.

AI and data analytics are at the heart of Onuta’s work, which she believes is a critical piece of successful innovation in the business-to-business environment. According to Onuta, for companies like DLL, who may not have the agility of an independent financial technology firm, attracting talented data scientists who can also understand the business perspective is critical. But it goes beyond hiring such experts, as Onuta explains that innovative leaders must also connect people to the transformation and give them purpose. She says DLL has instilled such a culture by engaging team members and creating a high-performing workforce made up of empowered people.

“We aim to operate as a data-driven organization with an innovative mindset, with a goal to provide seamless, smooth customer experiences.”