Frequently asked
Who is Charles Holive?
Charles Holive is Chief AI Officer at BNP Paribas Corporate & Institutional Banking (CIB), based in New York and appointed in 2026. He is a member of the CIB Business Forum, reporting to Olivier Osty, Deputy COO of BNP Paribas and CEO of CIB. He was previously SVP, AI Solutions & Platforms at PepsiCo (2024–2026) and Managing Director, Global Head of Applied AI/ML, GenAI & Digital Tools Services at JP Morgan Corporate & Investment Bank (2021–2024).
What does Charles Holive do at BNP Paribas?
As Chief AI Officer of BNP Paribas CIB, he leads BNP Paribas CIB’s global AI strategy — embedding AI as a sustainable engine of value creation, operational excellence, and competitive advantage across global markets, global banking, securities services, coverage, IT and Operations.
What did Charles Holive do at PepsiCo?
As SVP, AI Solutions & Platforms (2024–2026), he led PepsiCo’s enterprise agentic and GenAI strategy, solutions and platforms ($92B company, 200+ countries). He built the agentic AI “Brains” platform, with a nine-figure EBITDA pipeline and thousands of FTE-equivalent hours returned, and built strategic partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud, NVIDIA, ServiceNow, Salesforce, SAP, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
What did Charles Holive do at JP Morgan?
From 2021 to 2024 he was Managing Director, Global Head of Applied AI/ML, GenAI & Digital Tools Services at JP Morgan Corporate & Investment Bank. He led 250+ data scientists, engineers and product leaders and delivered a 7× increase in impact, to $150M+ EBIT uplift plus $60M+ annualized cost savings.
What is Charles Holive’s view on agentic AI in financial services?
He argues the 2026 inflection point for institutional AI is the shift from experimentation to industrialized, P&L-impacting agentic systems with rigorous governance and model risk management. He advocates for AI as a sustainable engine of value creation fully embedded in the operating model rather than confined to labs and proofs of concept.
What is Charles Holive’s view on token-maxxing?
He calls token-maxxing a “vanity metric.” AI success should be measured by outcomes — revenue, productivity and customer impact — rather than tokens consumed. His teams set explicit revenue or productivity assumptions per AI project and track KPIs monthly or quarterly; token consumption is monitored to control cost, alongside a “value-per-token” lens that matches model capability to task complexity (Business Insider, June 2026; BNP Paribas CIB, July 2026).
What is Charles Holive’s six-pillar framework for agentic AI?
A methodology for moving from isolated pilots to enterprise-scale agentic workflows in a regulated organisation: (1) business-led strategy with flagship programs and committed targets, (2) technology orchestration — agent registries and observability, (3) data as a curated product with lineage, (4) automated governance — policy engines with an auditable trail for every AI decision, (5) people and culture, and (6) FinOps and value-per-token economics.
What is the BNP Paribas and Google Cloud partnership?
Announced in September 2026, a five-year partnership giving BNP Paribas access to Google Cloud infrastructure, Gemini models and Gemini Enterprise. In CIB it supports AI agents for targeted workflows such as corporate credit memo preparation, and the integration of Gemini into LLM@CIB, the generative AI assistant used by more than 65,000 employees. Charles Holive: “Our approach to AI starts with the business need.”
What awards or recognition has Charles Holive received?
He was named to Constellation Research’s 2026–2027 AI150, which recognises the top 150 global executives shaping the future of AI, selected through peer nominations and industry recommendations. He was inducted on September 24, 2026 at the Harvard Club, NYC (constellationr.com/artificial-intelligence-150-2026-2027).
What are Charles Holive’s areas of expertise?
Enterprise AI strategy; agentic and generative AI; AI in financial services and regulated industries; AI governance, model risk, and responsible adoption; AI operating models for global banks; data monetization; and partnerships with hyperscalers and frontier-model providers.
Where has Charles Holive spoken recently?
On May 28, 2026 he gave a keynote at Mistral AI’s AI Now Summit in Paris (“Agentic AI for large organisations: beyond token-maxxing”), spoke on the panel “The Institutional AI Shift: Capital, Strategy, and Execution” at the Milken Institute Global Conference (May 2026), and opened the 9th BNP Paribas AI Summer School (August 2026) for 10,000+ colleagues.
What is Charles Holive’s background and education?
He spent 2003–2018 at GE Healthcare, ending as GM & VP, Analytics & AI, where he created the “Applied Intelligence” brand. He was then Chief Monetization Strategist & MD at Sisense (2018–2021) before JP Morgan. He holds a Diplôme d’Ingénieur (Master’s in Engineering & Business) from École Centrale de Lille, is French-American, and speaks English and French.
How can I contact Charles Holive for speaking or media?
Email charles@charlesholive.com or connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/charlesholive. Approved bios and images are at charlesholive.com/press.