Making Responsible AI Worth Trusting

Ananya Sharma

Compliance Senior Manager - Analytics & Advisory

Citizens Financial Group Inc.

Making Responsible AI Worth Trusting

Ananya Sharma

Compliance Senior Manager - Analytics & Advisory

Citizens Financial Group Inc.

Ananya Sharma-Most Empowering Women Leaders to Watch in 2026

As enterprise leaders scale AI, the challenge is no longer simply what technology can do, but what it might change along the way. AI can reshape cultures, amplify biases embedded in data, and overlook voices that deserve to be heard. Ananya Sharma believes responsible innovation begins with preserving human values, inclusion, and accountability within the systems we build. Her journey across operations, wealth management, product, analytics, data science, AML, compliance, and Fair Lending eventually brought her to this intersection of technology and human impact. Today, as Experience Owner, Analytics & Advisory at Citizens Financial Group Inc., she works across AI, data governance, Fair Lending, and product strategy. Mentors and difficult personal chapters have further shaped her understanding of resilience and the responsibility leaders carry when their decisions affect others. TradeFlock spoke with Ananya about the experiences and convictions shaping her approach to Responsible AI.

When did your career begin pointing toward Responsible AI?

Looking back, I never felt I was following a predefined career path. Instead, I kept following one question further each time. How are decisions made, who do they affect, and how can they improve? These questions took me through operations, wealth management, product, business intelligence, analytics, data science, AML, and eventually Fair Lending Risk and Compliance.

An entrepreneurial detour along the way clarified and strengthened those connections. Running business intelligence and consulting for a friend’s company taught me how decisions feel when resources are thin and the stakes are personal. I also saw organisations from the frontline, the founder’s seat, and the oversight chair, which gave me very different perspectives. Responsible AI was never a destination I planned, but it gradually became a natural convergence of questions I had been asking throughout my journey.

Which achievement most changed how you understand leadership?

Going to Northeastern University was transcendental. Much of that change came through Women Who Empower and the Alumni Association.

My mentors, Yelena and Olivia, pushed me toward the Young Global Leaders community, encouraging me to think beyond myself and give back. Watching other women lead through courage, determination, and grit showed me that leadership is not a title or a corner office. It is about solving real problems, showing up as yourself, and having the courage to speak the truth even when it is hard.

My grandfather, a professor and doctor, gave me a deep love of learning and shaped my understanding of mentorship. He showed me the value of knowledge shared with purpose, while the people who have guided me throughout my journey reinforced an equally important lesson: the best mentors do not simply give answers. They help people recognise strengths they may not yet see in themselves.

What do you hope women entering AI will carry forward?

My hope begins with keeping the human side of innovation in view. AI can transform education, healthcare, sustainability, financial services, and countless other fields, yet today’s choices will determine whether it expands opportunity or reinforces inequality. Responsible AI needs transparency, fairness, accountability, privacy, and human oversight at its core.

Women entering AI should recognise that empathy, resilience, collaboration, and human awareness are not soft skills. They are leadership capabilities as technology gains influence. I want women to ask difficult questions, challenge assumptions, and advocate for technologies that serve humanity rather than simply advancing capability.

I hope we build AI that pushes the boundaries of what is possible while reflecting the very best of who we are. I hope to contribute to a future where technological progress and human values evolve together.

“And one day she discovered that she was fierce and strong, full of fire and that even she could not hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than fire.” - Mark Anthony

What has Fair Lending taught you about making AI responsible?

Fair Lending made the consequences of governance tangible. A woman could be denied a loan because she was unmarried, an older applicant because of age, and whole neighbourhoods could be redlined by ZIP code. People could receive vague explanations without understanding what drove the decision.

Those examples changed how I see the problem because they were not really data failures. They were governance failures. Someone needed to ask who owned the decision, how it could be justified, whether it could be explained, and where the paper trail was. Human judgment carries assumptions and blind spots, and once those enter a system, bias can compound at scale.

My current work brings product strategy, data governance, and AI together in lending. We review system cards, mitigate high-risk models, and work bias out of decisioning across mortgages, credit cards, and student loans. Fairness cannot be a test at the finish line. It has to be designed from the start because systems learn what we teach them.

How did adversity change the way you lead?

Resilience began shaping me long before I held a leadership title. Growing up in a broken family and experiencing abandonment as a girl child left me wrestling with belonging, worth, and identity. Losing my grandfather during my bachelor’s degree deepened that uncertainty because he was my mentor, guide, and the one who believed in me. His loss felt like losing my compass, while my grandmother’s sacrifices, her strength and moral support became the foundation on which I rebuilt myself and became dauntless.

This journey of rebuilding myself with purpose helped me stumble upon my best friend, Ankita, my Ohana, and my family by choice who nurtured my thoughts and helped me heal.

A serious spine injury later left me unable to walk for a period of time. During recovery, my physiotherapists changed how I understood strength. Their support reminded me that resilience is rarely an individual achievement. They taught me how to bloom like the lotus, which, even though surrounded by muddy water, never loses its radiance and scatters joy out to the world.

Those experiences shape how I see people at work. Behind every job title, performance metric, and business decision is a human being carrying a story others may never see. I create environments where people feel trusted and supported because I know how transformative it is when someone believes in you.