Welcome to "AI or Not," the podcast where we explore the intersection of digital transformation and real-world wisdom, hosted by the accomplished Pamela Isom. With over 25 years of experience guiding leaders in corporate, public, and private sectors, Pamela, the CEO and Founder of IsAdvice & Consulting LLC, is a veteran in successfully navigating the complex realms of artificial intelligence, innovation, cyber issues, governance, data management, and ethical decision-making.
Trust is not a buzzword in AI-driven finance; it’s the product. We sit down with Anusha Nerella, a senior fintech leader to unpack how explainability, compliance, and human-centered design turn models into systems people can rely on. From reason codes in trading recommendations to precision-focused fraud detection, you’ll hear how building for auditability and clarity unlocks adoption with regulators, clients, and frontline teams.
We start with career roots in large banks and regulated environments, then tackle real-world use cases: liquidity routing that justifies every decision, fraud models that reduce false alarms by adding behavioral context, and governance workflows that keep shipping honest. You’ll learn why dashboards aren’t enough, why lineage and documentation must be embedded in the pipeline, and how to make “accountability by design” a team habit. The conversation also does no pull punches on bias, outlining how a high-accuracy credit model still drifted toward unfair outcomes until the data pipeline was rebuilt with fairness checks, feature audits, and human review steps.
We also look at representation and leadership. Women are shaping core AI work, yet often lack access to high-stakes projects and senior roles. Sponsorship, clear role maps, and culture that rewards bias-aware engineering are not nice-to-haves; they’re risk controls. The guiding question runs through the entire episode: Can we build it? Should we build it? For whom? Purpose informs thresholds, monitoring, and the definition of “good enough” when real money, safety, and trust are on the line.
If you care about AI in fintech, fraud prevention, compliant deployment, and building systems that earn confidence, this conversation is your playbook. Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns model risk or data platforms, and leave a review to tell us how you design for trust.
