Three executives at very different companies gathered in New York on Tuesday evening for TIME’s Executives of the Year Impact Dinner: Tech & Data, during which they reflected on their leadership roles in the current technological age.
Giving toasts at the event were David Griffiths, the group head of artificial intelligence at Citi bank; Selena Deckelmann, the chief technology and product officer at Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit 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 tech, but he said that human decision-making will determine the impact of that advancement—for good or ill.
“Many of us have spent our entire careers waiting for this moment. Technology is finally catching up with our ambition. The future is so incredibly exciting. Yet, if we’re honest, it’s also unsettling,” he said. “Most of the choices about what comes next won’t feel historic when we make them. They’ll be quiet: who we listen to, what we fund, when we decide to wait, and when we decide to act. And the people who will live with those choices mostly are not in this room.”
Our “accountability,” he said, “that stays with us.”
Deckelmann also spoke about the enduring role humans will play as technology continues to affect companies like her own.
“Technology can’t decide how to live a good life or give our lives meaning. Our people and communities do,” she said.
Deckelmann explained that a typhoon had led her parents to meet, and thanks to Wikipedia allowing users to create, edit, and share public information pages, she was able to reach out to the New York-based musician who had written the page about the storm.
“I was able to do that because this technology that is behind Wikipedia encourages these very human connections,” she said. “And it’s these human connections and the sharing that comes from them that are essential to creating a future where we live good lives together.”
Brantley took an alternative approach to his toast and the night’s theme. Instead of speaking about technology at the NFL, he spoke about his parents and the role they played in his upbringing and approach to leadership.
“Together, they taught us one of the most important lessons I have ever learned: You show up each and every day even when you are tired, even when you are discouraged, and especially when you do not feel like it,” he said. “None of us arrived where we are on our own.”
TIME Impact Dinner: Executives of the Year: Tech & Data was presented by Rokt.