Mizuho Americas is a key part of the Mizuho Financial Group, one of the world’s largest financial institutions with over $2 trillion in total assets. The Americas division serves corporate, institutional, and investment banking clients across the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Headquartered in New York City, Mizuho Americas continues to expand its influence in the region by combining global strength with local expertise, all while placing increasing emphasis on data and analytics as core pillars of its business transformation.

In the first installment of this three-part interview series, JC Lionti, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Mizuho Americas, joins Amy McNee, SVP of Solutions Architecture and Technical GTM at Informatica, to discuss how Mizuho is translating AI potential into practical business value — from rethinking GenAI’s role to aligning stakeholders and evolving the modern data‑leadership function.

From strategy to enablement

Lionti introduces his role with a wide lens, emphasizing that his remit goes beyond governance to include strategic enablement. “I have responsibility over what I call data usage, so analytics as well as AI,” he says. Since joining Mizuho over two years ago, he has helped shape the Chief Data Officer function from the ground up.

His scope includes defining strategy, implementing governance frameworks, managing data quality, and developing metadata and reference data capabilities. “I’m here to make sure that we use data in all of our decision-making processes — be it to develop a business, to manage our risks, to optimize our operations, and so on.”

AI with a product mindset

When asked why many organizations struggle to demonstrate sustained value from AI, Lionti offers a perspective that shifts the paradigm: “AI is not a project. AI creates products, and products have to be created, improved, sustained, and kept relevant.”

He emphasizes that enterprises often approach AI as a one-off implementation. At Mizuho, the focus is on operationalizing AI in a way that can evolve, rather than remaining static or siloed. “We try to go after solutioning problems and pain points. We talk to business partners, understand where they’re struggling, and start looking through those problems to see how we can solve them,” he explains.

Lionti is clear that AI is just one component of a larger problem-solving toolkit. His team avoids the trap of developing AI for AI’s sake. Instead, they focus on value-tracked, reusable solutions. “Even though some of what we do must meet some reusability criteria, we try to make sure that we are all very clear as to the value and how to track the value — and how to monitor the relevance of the use case over time.”

Gaining executive buy-in without the drama

Navigating executive consensus on AI priorities is often cited as a major obstacle for data leaders. For Lionti, alignment has been largely organic, thanks to a clearly defined business-first approach and proportionate investments.

“We are working very closely with senior management at different levels within the business units in bringing them solutions to solve their problems,” he says. So far, prioritization across units has not caused friction. Lionti notes that in some cases, business units have voluntarily contributed additional funding to accelerate solutions that benefit their operations. This speaks to a high level of trust and clarity around the purpose and ROI of AI initiatives.

Using, not building: A different model for AI adoption

Unlike some larger institutions that invest heavily in building proprietary AI models, Mizuho Americas takes a more pragmatic route. “We’re not developing AI models,” he states candidly. “We’re using, improving, and adapting existing models to our needs and use cases.”

This approach allows the team to focus on speed, scale, and relevance, rather than diverting resources toward foundational model building. “The investment is not small, but they’re definitely very proportionate to our business ambitions.”

Lionti concludes by pointing out an emerging challenge of demand outpacing delivery.  He says, “Sometimes it’s more a question of, ‘okay, how can you deliver more and faster?’”

CDO Magazine appreciates JC Lionti for sharing his insights with our global community.