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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
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- [00:30]
Jeremy Bloom
Hello, I'm Jeremy Bloom with the Advertising Forum. We are here with our partners, the IAB Tech Lab at their international summit in London. I'm here with my new friend, Achim Schlosser of Bertelsmann. Thank you for letting me get that out of my system. Achim, it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for being with us. Can you please tell us what you do and what part of your role is at Bertelsmann?
- [00:54]
Achim Schlosser
Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me. So my role is dubbed VP Global Data Standards.
- [01:00]
Jeremy Bloom
That's a lot right there.
- [01:01]
Achim Schlosser
That's a lot. Obviously and maybe to put it into context, the Bertelsmann is a global media services and education company present in 50 countries, 80,000 employees, but it's organized in a holding structure, right? So there is no central control on everything. These companies basically operate on their own. But there are obviously topics that have massive influences on how these businesses evolve, how they actually define their strategy. And so I'm working in a function in corporate central, as we call it, that is called technology and data that is existing for a couple of years now, where we kind of like strategically think about topics that influence Boltzmann as a whole in terms of digitalization, in terms of privacy, in terms of policy changes, in terms of technology. And that's the function I'm sitting in. And I'm personally mainly concerned with fostering data collaboration between burdenspan companies. Kind of like leveraging our first party data assets as much as possible because we actually have a lot of B2C consumers in the corporate. But also to be able to foster data correlation, the burdensome entities need to sustainably and scale, collect and access data. Right. So that's why we are also working, that's why we're here. Because standards, policies, privacy changes obviously affect all of these businesses. And so that's kind of like the thing I'm working on at this whole cosmos.
- [02:30]
Jeremy Bloom
Thank you. And we're going to hit on data, we're going to hit on privacy. But first and foremost we are here, the end of the beginning, nothing will be the same as you're leading data. Help me understand what this means for Bertelsmann. When you hear that line, the end of the beginning, nothing will be the same.
- [02:48]
Achim Schlosser
Yeah, I actually had a bit of preparation because it's actually the second instance of the summit. Right. It was also in the New York one. But I think that, I think the points that Tony obviously made this morning in terms of changes platforms are implementing, in terms of restricting access to data, regulatory changes, changes in how users actually consume media, all of those actually obviously massively affect Bertelsmann and obviously all of those are being tackled and addressed and implemented into our strategies for a couple of years now. Obviously. I mean, the easiest part is most probably a big focus now on streaming service. Naturally. Right. A big focus is on. Most of the companies are actually now more on, let's say non desktop environments, but app environments, CDV is a big thing. So this is all happening. So in a sense nothing will be the same. But it's sort of an agile multi year process where obviously all of these companies are evolving and shifting and shaping and we obviously try our best to support that from a corporate perspective.
- [03:52]
Jeremy Bloom
And how do you navigate the complexities of privacy and data when you're talking about giant, giant media companies, when you're talking about the RTL Group, when you're talking about Penguin, Random House, Purtelsman is across so many different. Has so many different companies that are part of your portfolio. It's a lot of privacy, it's a lot of data points.
- [04:14]
Achim Schlosser
Yeah, I mean, I mean, obviously again, I mean they basically operate naturally in their own business. But the thing is, how can we actually drive value for all of them with these changes happening? Right. So in a sense you can think about as a big. It has different aspects, right. So one thing is knowledge sharing, the other thing is technology, naturally. And there are obviously aspects that require a certain type of governance. For example, now with AI coming up, there are also legal requirements where you actually need to do more stuff on a more central scenario. So in a sense it has two layers. It's the internal view.
- [04:53]
Jeremy Bloom
So collaboration.
- [04:55]
Achim Schlosser
Yeah, collaboration, both internally. And we are for example, also running a internal collaboration platform, not just a data collaboration platform, but also a knowledge collaboration platform within this group. Another colleague of mine. So collaboration is the key thing and so internally, obviously it's about the colleagues that are running media, politics, policy stuff. Right. Engaging with stakeholders. Then we have the colleagues, the general councils. The councils, the legal counsels, the data protection officers, quite a bunch of them all over the place. It's not like all of these topics are so closely related that they all need to talk to each other, but it's this internal stakeholder collaboration thing, not challenge. I think this is working quite well, I think, in a sense. And then the other thing is the external part where we basically look into the whole space about, okay, what types of associations are important, what types of standardization organizations are important, and in which of those do we need to be present from a corporate perspective, obviously jointly with the Burtesman companies. Right. So one of them is obviously IB Europe in terms of privacy standards. IB Tech Lab is another one because we have a. I don't know how many companies in the Burtesmart ecosystem work with Tech Lab standards with their products. So. And we kind of like selectively look for these external engagements, these associations, tech standards, engaging also with big vendors and how we cooperate. And obviously another thing that we then will try to structure is how is that, where is the relation to AI in that? So it's got to be a part of, I think all the association work and the tech sanitization work and the in things like Tech Lab, for example. But maybe we will also see other things popping up in AI where we see new associations and tech things we need to look at.
- [06:47]
Jeremy Bloom
I love that you brought up AI. Help us understand when you're across all these different lines of business, all these different companies, where does AI fit in into the greater Bertelsmann ecosystem? Because there's so many different brands, there's so many different regions. How do you deal with all of that and all the data that's involved with it?
- [07:05]
Achim Schlosser
Yeah, I mean, this is. It's a bit different because largely concerning different types of data. Right. So the AI side on our end is currently the most obvious cases are mostly around content course. Right. The content stuff. I think AI in let's say digital advertising and these businesses is more centered around machine learning topics, which fits quite well into the existing structures with the privacy thing. So that's not something new, but it's actually the third pillar in this endeavor that we have about knowledge sharing, data collaboration, and then also AI. And AI basically has three aspects in the sense that the whole thing about what vendors are you working with and how are you vetting them such that not every individual company has to do it a bit of a part of innovation in a sense. So there might be things where you want to have a kind of like a pilot innovation that is happening maybe earlier. And then the other thing is obviously also the knowledge collaboration bit where we Kind of like try to also build kind of like focus topics where then Bertelsmann entities can collaborate on things like content creation. How does it affect the news cycle? How does it affect content marketing? Obviously because we produce a lot of content, so content marketing is a big.
- [08:17]
Jeremy Bloom
Topic, a lot of content.
- [08:19]
Achim Schlosser
And then kind of like you have these horizontal layers in terms of governance, which is just being set up also in context of the AI act naturally. Right. So AI act is entering into force early next year, which will give everyone a bit of obligation in terms of educating their workforce in terms of using AI tools and also transparency obligations that in a sense when we are using AI within the company, that we basically need a lot of transparency stuff. And also seeing that we retain control and have proper procedures on potential what the AI ACT calls high risk stuff. I mean, it's very narrow in terms of topics that are high risks, but you still need to be cautious to be aware of that.
- [08:59]
Jeremy Bloom
You had mentioned governance. How does the governance across different regions, across emea, across the Americas, how do you essentially work with the internal teams and the external teams when it comes to corporate governance?
- [09:14]
Achim Schlosser
I mean, this is, as I said, this is not really centralized, but only for the few PIDs. I think the only part where we will basically have likely more streamlined governance structures because of the AI act kind of sense. Right. The other parts are very decentral in a sense and are largely focused. So there is no privacy, governance top down or stuff like that. Obviously all these parties need to work together because in Europe at least we are also liable in terms of fines on the corporate level. So we must do this. But there are obviously existing structures.
- [09:41]
Jeremy Bloom
Doesn't Americans know about this? Achim, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. Wonderful discussion.
- [09:48]
Achim Schlosser
Thanks a lot for having me.
- [09:49]
Jeremy Bloom
Thanks.
- [09:49]
Podcast Host
Thank you for listening to the Markitecture podcast. New episodes come out every Friday and an insightful vendor interview is published each Monday. You can subscribe to our library of hundreds of executive interviews at Markitecture tv. You can also sign up for free for our weekly newsletter with my original strategic insight on the week's news at News Market tv. And if you're feeling social, we operate a vibrant Slack community that you can apply to join@adtechgod.com.