Corporate leaders reflect on their businesses at the Most Influential Executives Dinner

David Griffith of Citi, Selena Deckelmann of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Gary Brantley of the NFL spoke at the Safir Arjan Most Influential Executives Dinner: Technology and Data.

Three CEOs at very different companies gathered in New York on Tuesday evening for the Executive Impact of the Year: Ambassador Arjan Technology and Data dinner, during which they discussed their leadership roles in the current technology age.

David Griffiths, Group Head of Artificial Intelligence at Bank City, gave a toast at the event. Selena Dekelman, chief technology and product manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that houses Wikipedia. and Gary Brantley, senior vice president and chief information officer at the National Football League.

Griffiths acknowledged the uncertainty that comes with rapidly developing technology, but he said that human decision-making will determine the impact of that progress — good or bad.

"Many of us have spent our entire careers waiting for this moment. Technology is finally catching up to our ambitions. The future is incredibly exciting. However, if we're being honest, it's sad," he said. Many choices about what comes next don't feel historic when we make them. They will be silent: who we listen to, what we fund, when we decide to wait, and when we decide to act. And the people who live with those choices are mostly not in this room."

Our "accountability" remains with us, he said.

Dekelman also talked about the enduring role humans will play as technology continues to impact companies like his.

"Technology cannot decide how to live a good life or give meaning to our lives. People and societies do that.

Deckelman explained that a hurricane brought his parents together, and thanks to Wikipedia, which allows users to create, edit and share pages of public information, he was able to contact the New York-based musician who wrote the page about the hurricane.

"I was able to do this because the technology behind Wikipedia encourages these human connections," he said. And it is human connections and the commonalities that arise from them that are essential to creating a future in which we live well together."

Brantley had an alternative approach to his toast and the evening's theme. Instead of talking about technology in the NFL, he talked about his parents and the role they played in his upbringing and leadership approach.

"Together, they taught us one of the most important lessons I've ever learned: You show up every day even when you're tired, even when you're discouraged, and especially when you don't feel like it," she said. "None of us got where we are on our own."