Scotiabank

Carol Diaz

Business Insight Champion

Carol Diaz is a finance and operations leader with experience across financial management, technology and operations within the banking sector. At Scotiabank (NYSE: BNS) (TSX: BNS), she focuses on aligning finance, operational performance and data-driven insights to support business decision-making and transformation initiatives.

In an interview with CIOReview, she shared insights on the role of finance leaders, the growing impact of AI and automation in financial operations and the importance of balancing innovation with governance.

Turning Financial Data into Business Insights

From my role within global business centers, finance is no longer just about reporting numbers. It is about converting those numbers into meaningful indicators, understanding the business behind them and translating that information into decisions.

It is about analyzing those numbers to understand the productivity of the services we provide and identifying what needs to change. It is also about understanding the true cost of serving clients rather than just reporting total costs. By gaining a deeper view of business operations, finance can provide business partners with the information they need to make informed decisions.

Advancing AI within Regulatory Frameworks

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how organizations operate, and finance cannot remain outside of that transformation. As AI and automation take over data entry and routine processing, organizations must move beyond processing data and focus on analyzing it, reducing manual work while upskilling teams to interpret results and generate insights.

At the same time, regulatory compliance remains a top priority within the financial sector. Adopting new technologies cannot come at the expense of client data security. It is important to conduct proof-of-concept testing using limited populations and non-client data to ensure controls function as intended and approvals are completed before any deployment goes live.

Strong governance is equally important. AI adoption cannot be managed independently across business units or subsidiaries. Centralized oversight helps ensure consistent standards, risk assessments and approval processes across the organization while reducing overall risk exposure.

Connecting Financial and Operational Insights

Leveraging data effectively requires connecting financial information with broader operational measures, including productivity, volumes, costs and time. Understanding the cost of serving a client goes beyond reporting expenses and includes evaluating the time, effort and resources required to deliver that service. Together, these metrics provide a more complete view of resource utilization.

My role spans overseeing both finance and management information systems (MIS), creating an opportunity to bring together dashboards, raw data and operational information into a unified view. Combining productivity and financial metrics helps business leaders evaluate performance across geographies and identify opportunities to improve efficiency.

Leading through Economic and Workforce Transformation

Over the next three to five years, finance leaders will need to navigate increasing macroeconomic uncertainty, including inflation, currency devaluation and market volatility. For organizations operating across multiple countries, assessing how these factors affect financial performance and resource allocation will remain a critical challenge.

The continued adoption of AI and other emerging technologies is changing workforce requirements across organizations. As demand grows for technology-focused skills, companies must invest in up-skilling employees and reassessing how talent is deployed. Preparing for these changes requires close collaboration between finance, HR and business leaders to ensure talent is being utilized effectively and aligned with evolving business needs and the opportunities created by new technologies.

Advice for Future Finance Leaders

The way finance professionals operate today is very different from the traditional focus on bookkeeping and reporting. Finance must work closely with the business, going beyond the numbers to understand how different parts of the organization create value.

My advice to the next generation of finance leaders is to understand the organization’s operations, revenue drivers and the role finance plays in enabling business success. It is just as important as understanding the financial results themselves.