Experian at a Glance

• Industry: Fintech‍
• Size: 20,000+ employees
• Recently named Top 25 Great Places to Work
• One of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work for five consecutive years

Key Takeaways

• Experian had a pilot up and running in six weeks. Within one hour of launch, 100% of pilot users were using Valence’s AI leadership coach, Nadia.
• A larger beta test of Nadia earned an NPS of 96.
• Experian gave managers freedom to experiment with Nadia. Experian listened to manager feedback and expanded the tool’s capabilities to include role plays and customizations around Experian’s values, leadership models, and performance feedback.
• Experian is now rolling out an AI-first global leadership program, giving all mid-level managers access to Nadia.

GenAI for a People-First Organization

Experian is committed to being a people-first organization. For the past five years, they have been one of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work, in large part because of their focus on leadership effectiveness.

Like many HR leaders, Lesley Wilkinson, Chief Talent Officer at Experian, has recently seen an explosion of generative AI tools, as workers have discovered ChatGPT and other AI tools at home and then brought them into the workplace. Her job, as she sees it, is learning where the pain points are for Experian’s employees and putting solutions in their hands that make them better leaders.

In particular, Lesley saw two critical needs for Experian’s managers that GenAI could play a critical role in addressing:

1. Experian had built a strong coaching culture, but in-person coaching couldn’t scale to support all managers.
2. Managers needed a support solution that they could interact with and learn from in the flow of work, not just at certain points throughout the year.

Offering Freedom to Experiment

Lesley set up a GenAI academy so managers had space to learn and experiment with GenAI tools. Valence’s AI coach, Nadia, was one tool Experian’s GenAI academy tested. In just six weeks, Experian moved from an initial demo with Valence CEO Parker Mitchell, through a rigorous review process, and into preparations for a pilot project.

In the pilot, an out-of-the-box version of Nadia was made available to a select cohort of managers. Managers were provided with a brief demo of the interface, but it was up to each individual how they wanted to use Nadia. Within one hour of launch, 100% of pilot participants were using the tool.

“We found incredibly high adoption. I’ve never seen adoption statistics so high from leadership content that we might roll out.”
- Lesley Wilkinson, Chief Talent Officer

The pilot also earned a net promoter score (NPS) of 85, which further increased to an NPS of 96 in a larger follow-on beta test.

Agility & Alignment for Security Review

Experian, as a financial services company, is cautious by nature, but they were able to move quickly to pilot GenAI technology, in part because of careful alignment between Lesley’s team and IT Security. As Experian has evolved from a credit rating agency into a cutting-edge fintech company, it has built agile processes that maintain privacy and data security while still allowing the company to bring on enterprise-ready technology.

“Our partners in IT security, I couldn’t live without them,” says Lesley. “They keep me safe, but they’re complete partners right the way through the exploration and the experimentation. They’re enablers, not gatekeepers.”

With 100% of users saying they’d continue to utilize their AI coach, enterprise-grade security practices, and a clear, quantifiable ROI, Experian was ready to take the next step.

New Features & Personalizing Nadia

Soon Lesley was getting requests from managers to role-play difficult and high-stakes conversations with Nadia. Valence developed this (now widely popular) feature for Experian, and Nadia’s ability to build empathetic, context-rich responses started bringing expert advice from theory to practice. “In an instant, we’ve given all of our leaders the ability to role-play whenever they want, in their own language, in the safety of their own space,” Lesley emphasized.

The next step was to tailor Nadia’s guidance. Experian customized their AI coach to the company’s values and leadership competency model and allowed individual employees to confidentially share information, such as 360-degree reviews and employee engagement surveys. With more personalized information, Nadia could create tailored leadership plans.

Quickly, regional talent managers became internal advocates for Nadia. One leader introduced AI coaching to 200 employees in just one month. Experian decided it was time to upgrade to a global enterprise license so every manager could access the tool. Since then, 92% of all managers have said they want to continue using Nadia.

AI-First Leadership Development

Experian is now launching an AI-first global leadership development program, designed for new mid-level managers who are overseeing other managers for the first time in their careers. Experian is giving these managers access to Nadia and building the course curriculum directly into Nadia, ahead of an in-person development course. Managers have a simple, interactive way to prepare for the in-person event, and they can continue to practice and reinforce what they learned in the course with Nadia as they begin to manage their teams.

“I have been using Nadia to address some team dynamic challenges [and] have been blown away by how much she has helped me with this. She has been incredible at asking those ‘why’ questions we never go far enough in asking ourselves.”
- Regional Head of Risk UK at Experian