Meet MBA Alumnus, Jordan Walsh

Pictured:Jordan Walsh.

Jordan, for those who haven’t met you yet - can you tell us a bit about your career to date and what excites you about working at the intersection of financial services, customer behaviour and AI?

I've been in Financial Services with Suncorp Bank for about 10 years — starting in frontline lending leadership before moving into Home Lending product as a Growth Strategist, where my focus is the strategic deployment of AI models within the bank. What I love about the role is the range of people I get to work with — senior leaders, data scientists, external vendors and frontline teams — constantly bridging the gap between what the business needs, what the data can tell you, and what's possible within a heavily regulated environment.

Away from the day job, I sit on the board of P&Cs Queensland as a Non-Executive Director and lead their AI Working Group, working directly with the Department of Education on how AI can be applied meaningfully in Queensland schools. Different world to banking, but honestly the same questions keep coming up.

What drew you to the Griffith MBA originally, and how did the program’s values-based approach shape the way you think about leadership and strategy today?

The sustainability focus is what drew me in. Griffith stood out because it wasn't treating sustainability as a box-ticking exercise — it was genuinely woven through everything. What I didn't expect was how much that would shape the way I think about AI specifically — things like energy consumption, water usage and the resources required to train and run models. These aren't fringe concerns anymore.

The biggest takeaway was that if you apply a sustainability lens genuinely — embedding it into how you approach every problem rather than layering it on at the end — it stops feeling forced. It just becomes part of how you think.

You completed your MBA while juggling a demanding career, family life, volunteering and taking part in the Global Business Challenge 2019. How did you manage that balance?

I have to start by giving credit to my wife Natalie — without her holding everything together at home, none of it would have been possible. We've got two boys, aged ten and six, so life was already full before you factor in everything else.

It came down to structure. I got into a rhythm of getting up at five every morning Monday to Thursday for two hours of study before work, then back on in the evenings for lectures and assignments. The Griffith MBA being fully online was non-negotiable for me, and having an employer who offered study leave made a real difference for the heavier assignments. The Global Business Challenge in 2019 was a genuine highlight — seeing what you're learning translate into practice gives you a second wind.

Your current work involves building AI models that predict customer behaviour in banking. From your perspective, what’s the most misunderstood aspect of AI in business – and what should leaders be thinking about that they often aren’t?

I explored this recently on the Griffith Relational Insights Data Lab podcast 'Show Me the Data' — Episode 4, From Automation to Empathy — worth a listen.

But the thing I feel most strongly about is this: if you've identified a burning business problem today and think an AI model is going to solve it, you're already too late. The runway to develop, test and deploy means you need to be thinking 12 to 24 months ahead. Leaders who treat AI as a rapid response tool will constantly be chasing their tail.

The other issue is the difference between being data-driven and data-informed. There's a growing tendency to let the model make the call, and I think that's genuinely dangerous. No computational insight replaces decades of professional experience. Use AI as your wingman, not your pilot.

Looking ahead, whether in AI, strategy or the broader finance landscape - what’s lighting a fire for you right now? What future possibilities are you most excited about?

Two things. In financial services, it's real-time personalisation at scale — AI that responds to individual customer behaviour in the moment rather than broad segmentation. The opportunity in home lending is significant, but data security and customer privacy create real friction. The banks that solve that properly rather than treating it as a blocker will build relationships that are hard to replicate.

Outside of banking, it's education. Leading the P&Cs Queensland AI Working Group and working directly with the Department of Education on how AI will be leveraged in Queensland schools is what's genuinely exciting me most. The same philosophy applies — AI as a wingman, not the pilot — but when you're talking about kids and classrooms, getting it right matters even more.

If you’d like to learn more about Jordan’s work or connect with him, you can reach him via LinkedIn. Jordan also shared his insights on the Show Me the Data podcast in the episode titled “From Automation to Empathy: Redefining Customer Conversations with Data & AI”.