Stamford, Connecticut, United States
I build AI systems that drive P&L impact — then I teach organizations how to scale them. As Head of AI Strategy & Emerging Technologies at Diageo, I own AI marketing and commercial strategy across a multi-billion-dollar portfolio. The Advanced Analytics team I built in 2018 deployed ML models that remain in production eight years later, driving sustained annual value through media allocation efficiency and sales-resource prioritization. Our GenAI content pipelines, deployed across the portfolio, materially reduced production costs and non-working spend. I've trained hundreds of practitioners and deployed AI platforms with enterprise-wide adoption. Before Diageo: four years at Accenture leading commercial transformation for top-tier CPG clients, and five years at McKesson driving large-scale EHR modernization across healthcare enterprises. What makes me different from most AI executives: I still build. In June 2025, I won 1st Place Overall at the SCSP AI+ Expo Hackathon. We built SentinelAI, a multi-agent crisis-response system, in 48 hours using Claude, MCP, and real-time data integration. Open-sourced on GitHub. Since then: a steady stream of working prototypes spanning multi-agent coordination, security intelligence, OSINT synthesis, AI filmmaking, and enterprise analytics — all built with frontier AI tools. ANA AI Council Chair (1,000+ members). Cornell MBA (Johnson). Multi-time founder — PEBI.AI (applied intelligence engineering) and Azure Bev Co (Partáy, agave RTD). The organizations that win won't have the biggest models — they'll be the ones that operationalize AI value fastest. Building in public at PEBI.AI and MichaelDitter.com.
Own AI marketing and commercial strategy for Diageo. Built and scaled AI platforms, predictive decision systems, and GenAI content pipelines driving significant combined business impact. AI Strategy & Capability Building — Trained a large cohort of practitioners across AEO, GenAI content production, and enterprise AI for sales and Revenue Growth Management; deployed AI platforms that reached enterprise-wide active usage. Codified workflows scaling across media, content, brand, and RGM. Predictive Analytics & Decision Systems — Extended the demand-driven intelligence capability built in 2018 into a full AI decision platform. Underlying ML models remain in production eight years later, driving sustained annual value through media allocation efficiency and sales-resource prioritization. Generative Content at Scale — Deployed GenAI content pipelines across the portfolio, materially reducing production costs and non-working spend against a multi-billion-dollar marketing budget. Operational at scale across North America. Personalization (Project Halo) — Scaled Diageo's GenAI bottle personalization platform across US activations — Johnnie Walker (Father's Day) and Casamigos (US Open of Surfing) — now scoped into the Casamigos 2026 FIFA World Cup activation. Category-leading application of generative AI to mass customization. Ecosystem & Industry Leadership — Partnerships across Frontier Labs, Google, AWS, and the broader martech ecosystem. ANA AI Council Chair (1,000+ members); regular speaker at major industry conferences on AI transparency, governance, and capability.
Founded PEBI.AI (Persistent Edge-Built Intelligence) — an applied intelligence engineering practice building multi-agent AI systems, real-time decision platforms, and rapid prototypes. Delivered the first spatial-video brand experience on Apple Vision Pro. Advised Fortune 500 CPG clients on AI-driven sales and marketing transformation. Portfolio includes 100+ working prototypes spanning crisis response, security intelligence, OSINT synthesis, and generative content
Founded and scaled an agave-based ready-to-drink alcohol brand from concept to market. Achieved 750+ distribution points and e-commerce presence across 40+ states in year one. Built and executed channel strategy across retail, on-premise, and direct-to-consumer. Licensed the brand to ensure sustainable growth while transitioning to AI-focused ventures.
Provided strategic oversight of portfolio strategy, sales and marketing, customer marketing, revenue management, and route-to-consumer across North America — leading the business back to share growth. Led a 5-person strategy team in collaboration with the CEO and BoD. Established the first Advanced Analytics division in the spirits industry — a team dedicated to predictive analytics and applied machine learning. Transformed how thousands of field sales representatives used technology, delivering advanced selling insights and portfolio recommendations. Analytics-driven strategies contributed 50 basis points of incremental top-line growth.
Led sales and marketing transformation engagements across Consumer Goods, Healthcare, and Industrial sectors. Delivered data-driven strategies for consumer engagement, personalization, and category expansion for top-tier clients including zero-based budgeting at the world's largest food and beverage company.