Ernesto Izquierdo

The Digital Transformation Facilitator

Role: Panel moderator and AI adoption strategist at Tunnel, a nonprofit organization working in vaccines in Geneva.

Full panel report here

Key Contributions:

  • Real-world AI Challenge: Shared immediate organizational pressure: someone from his hospital that morning expressed confusion about AI adoption - "we have a lot of noise around AI. People want it, some people don't, we don't know how to tackle it."

  • Regulatory Training Insight: Discovered how to leverage compliance requirements for adoption: using mandatory training on AI decision-making risks to actually facilitate AI understanding and adoption within his organization.

  • Implementation Framework: Introduced the "leadership, crowd, and lab" framework with feedback loops for organizational AI adoption - leadership providing vision and funding, crowd enabling champions to test and identify use cases, and lab developing robust solutions.

  • Niagara Falls Metaphor: Described AI development pace as an unstoppable, massive force: comparing daily Microsoft updates and new AI capabilities to the constant, overwhelming power of Niagara Falls.

Seasoned change management professional currently serving as AI Capability Building Lead at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, where he drives Generative AI adoption and Microsoft Copilot implementation. Previously managed digital transformation initiatives at the International Committee of the Red Cross for over 9 years, specializing in enterprise social networks and collaborative platforms with measurable ROI. Prosci-certified change expert with proven success in training delivery, stakeholder engagement, and creating user-friendly digital workplace solutions across international organizations.