CRO Circle Dinner | From AI use cases to scalable impact: why rethinking beats refining

Summary

A recent review by MIT has revealed that only 5% of AI projects successfully deliver their expected value.
We believe this stems from the traditional approach of identifying use cases. Use cases bring improvements in some cases, but do not allow for scaling in our experience. What’s truly needed is a more radical rethinking and redesign of processes to achieve proper ROIs. Using independent control testing as an example, we will show how productivity in this case could be improved by up to 4x, and some ideas how this can be scaled.

Keynote

Heinzl Thomas, CFO / CRO, Head Finance & Risk at Vontobel
Dr. Thomas Heinzl is the CFO and CRO at Vontobel Education, leading the Finance & Risk division since 2020. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of St. Gallen and an MSc in Computer Science from ETH Zurich. From 2014 to 2020, he served as COO of UBS Asset Management and became Chairman of UBS Asset Management Schweiz AG in 2019. Earlier, between 2012 and 2014, he headed PB Investments at Vontobel and previously led Strategic Planning at UBS. Before that, he spent more than ten years at McKinsey & Company (1998–2010). He also co-founded a start-up in 2011–2012. Since 2025, he has served on the Board of Directors of Blue Earth Capital AG.

Agenda

18:30  Welcome cocktail
19:15  Take seat at dinner table
19:30  Welcome speech (5min) by Bruno Meyer
19:40  Appetizers
20:00  Keynote speech  (30-40min)
20:40  Main Course and Dessert
21:30  End of event

About CRO circle

The CRO Circle institutionalizes the need to debate thoughts and ideas with your C- and Board level colleagues informally. It helps you to identify risk topics that you didn’t think of yet. It provides you with very exclusive networking opportunities and surely new friendships. The “CRO Circle” targets the most senior risk managers, the leaders who are responsible to identify and manage the risk for a company comprehensively. A CRO Circle seat is available as a part of our Corporate Packages.