This week, we’re spotlighting Giovanni Leoni, Global Performance & AI Business Lead for Novo Nordisk Global Supply Chain. With over 25 years of experience leading business operations across more than ten sectors, Giovanni focuses on helping leadership make smarter business decisions while leveraging novel technology to improve global supply chain operations. His focus centers on aligning advanced AI capabilities directly with everyday operational reality.
Hyperight.com: What’s the best way to describe your job to someone outside tech?
Giovanni Leoni: Simply put, I enable leadership with Global Supply Chain to make better business decision, while supporting the whole Supply Chain to become a better business through using novel technology.
Hyperight.com: What originally sparked your interest in AI/data, and what keeps you inspired today?
Giovanni Leoni: What originally sparked my interest in data and AI comes from early impressions of cyberpunk in my youth, from the likes of William Gibson, which created an interest for data and advanced technology. Later in life, being engaged with business decisions in a corporate environment, it made me connect the dots, seeing the potential of data-driven decisions and AI in business.
Hyperight.com: What is one challenge you’re trying to solve, and why does it matter?
Giovanni Leoni: What keeps me inspired is the enormous potential AI has for value creation while the need for organisations to change their way of working in order to reap the benefits. One of the key challenges I dedicate my time to is to identify true opportunities for change enabled with AI that would reinvent how business is done.
Hyperight.com: A tool you can’t live without (tech or not)?
Giovanni Leoni: A set of tools that I can not live without is boring enough the Microsoft Office suite, as most conversations are managed and facilitated through these tools. It also reflects my focus on people and process, where technology then follows as an enabler.
Hyperight.com: What trend in data or AI do you think will shape the Nordic region the most?
Giovanni Leoni: The trend I think will shape data and AI in the Nordics is well-governed agentic AI. It will both bring the necessary business impact on top of slow moving legacy systems, while also maintain necessary level of control and steering. 
Hyperight.com: What’s one piece of advice you’d give to others entering the data and AI field?
Giovanni Leoni: The one piece of advice I would give to others entering the data and AI field is to truly understand the business reality in which you operate in and how technology capabilities can meet people where they are in terms of data availability, process maturity and ability to adopt novel technology.
