Innovative Strategies in a Changing Landscape: Thomson Reuters’ Approach with David Carrel, CMO

Thank you. Great to be here, Jeff.

Of course, very happy to. So first, I would start with our purpose. Thomson Reuters' purpose is to inform the way forward. From that, Thomson Reuters is really set up to drive content-driven technology for professionals, particularly in business, legal, tax, and compliance. What we do is we take our amazing, unmatched proprietary content and match it with industry-leading technology so we can power informed action for professionals, whether it be in law firms, general counsel within corporations, or in tax, whether that be tax compliance or direct and indirect tax professionals. We're always looking to innovate for professionals across the world and institutions.

Yeah, no, great. TR is great. It is a big company, about 26,000 people. And a few years ago, we started a change where we were mostly a holding company with different business units, different groups—legal professionals, tax professionals, risk professionals. And we started to form more of an operating company, act as one, integrate as one, and become more of a content-driven technology company. Moving from more of a content producer to more of a technology company has been a big change, and it's been an exciting path. I think one of the reasons for me, I have a history of technology, both in subscription-based and SaaS-based tech programs. So I'm coming in and bringing this together, driving some change. The journey for TR overall has increased our growth, maybe from one or two percent five, ten years ago to seven or eight percent now, and it's been super, super fun.

Well, what I would say, we're moving towards an operating company. So before I joined, or I guess when I joined, we had very siloed groups. Across the company, we've been on a journey of changes, but for marketing specifically, our legal group was organized this way, our tax group was organized similar but different, processes were different, go-to-markets were different. One of the things I've been working on is to create a one marketing group, more of an enterprise go-to-market, centralized in some degree but also decentralized in key areas, but really driving expertise and more specialization, more scale when we get it. So bringing the teams together for one. And then two, I would say really building on how do we operate more like a technology company, whether looking at customer lifecycle or go-to-market using our partners. Just one recent example: we had some AI launch just a few weeks ago, and one of our key aspects is we integrated with Microsoft and we were on the keynote with Satya, who talked about TR as a great plug-in for their AI work around Microsoft 365 Copilot. Going to market and talking about that more has been great for us. We're also looking to integrate marketing campaigns better. In our recent AI launch, we brought together partners and product announcements, PR—we had over 250 PR mentions. Bigger, better marketing. We're actually on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today as it happened. So just thinking a little differently, building and innovating on where we've been has been part of the marketing journey as well. It's a combination of operating differently as well and go-to-market differently. And it's been super exciting. Moving quicker, some of the timelines are faster as we seek to launch, and making sure we keep some of the great work we've done in the past but just look at, hey, where can we do more, what can we innovate.

I would say there are always challenges. I think balancing speed with traditional ways of operating and checking all the boxes. There's pros and cons to everyone, but as you move faster, you have a little more ambiguity, you maybe get over your skis in some areas. But it's actually been super energizing. We started talking about generative AI on our earnings call in early May and we said, hey, we're going to spend 100 million each year for the next several years on AI. That has kicked off a bigger push on the marketing front, and we've definitely had to work faster. The team has been amazing, by the way. I want to give a huge shout-out to the team in all areas. But it's a challenge to your question: our process, how do you condense it, how do you get it going faster? We've been pushing more videos—how do we show videos around what the future of our product could be? We're also, as we move into more product launches, talking about our products, getting customers excited about them ahead of when the official general availability is. I think that's not just a challenge but maybe it's a change. The challenges are on the speed and the changes, but I gotta say the team has really responded and is excited. It's kind of like you're on the cutting edge, people get revved up, they dive in, tons of work, but we're constantly looking to say how can we increase our clock speed. It's something you push on. When I actually go back, I thought about when I was at Amazon Prime. I was part of a small team that helped start the first Prime Day. I think back and we're like, we don't know what's gonna happen and you're just kind of doing stuff and making it drive. In some regards, you need to lean into that. It definitely brings challenges, but I think it creates passion and excitement and some newness. I tell my team, let's get out there and do something. It's okay to make mistakes. It's better to drive and create and try, and we're definitely going to iterate along the way. So long answer, maybe, but the chat.

Yeah, so it's interesting. My first job after undergrad was actually working at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and I was working on the Microsoft case. I was literally reading Bill Gates's email and his team's as part of antitrust. I'm reading these documents and I'm 22, and I'm thinking, I don't want to be reading about the internet, I want to be creating it. I actually, with some friends, started to teach myself HTML, web development, and went on to e-commerce. So just to your point, I definitely have a strong recollection of the start of the internet, and I definitely see AI around, hey, there's the start of the internet. I think mobile was a big change, right? I think cloud was a change. I definitely think generative AI and where we are today is a change that will affect every industry across the board. It may be more like the cloud where it's more technical and it's more happening and customers don't always see it. I think the internet was very visible to consumers—go to this website. But in legal and even in marketing, the generative AI capabilities are just starting and we're using them today. We're experimenting across that.

Yeah, we're actually using it to generate code to do videos, creating videos, looking at content generation of how we can do it. Those are a few of the top ones. We're exploring how to use it for SEO improvement as well and just kind of leaning in to some of the Copilot capabilities as well for analysis. So a lot of people are waiting to get their hands on that. And you probably saw Adobe Firefly came out with some generative AI. We're experimenting with it. When they announced it maybe a couple months ago at the summit conference, my team was reaching out to me that day, we got to try this out and test it. I was like, go, go test it out. So definitely in several areas, the teams are excited about it. Still early days, we'll have to evaluate, but it's definitely having an impact and will continue to have an impact.

Concern? I think TR makes sure we use it responsibly, right? We have trust principles, we have ethical AI, our view on that. Bringing it back to my team in marketing, I've heard more like, hey, let's make sure we use it responsibly. I haven't heard as much concerns about it. What we say to our customers is, AI won't replace your job as a lawyer, for example, but a lawyer using AI may replace lawyers not using AI, just like any other tools. From personal feedback from my team, they're excited about it and they're seeing what they can do versus what a machine or tool would do. So it's great. This may evolve and change, but definitely lots of excitement, and we're experimenting in several areas.

Yeah, well, we're definitely... and we've shared some of this at the Microsoft Build conference. It was exciting to be part of the keynote, first of all. Thomson Reuters as a key partner was mentioned by Satya on day one and on day two, so it was great. But yeah, we're definitely integrating generative AI into our fundamental key platforms such as Westlaw, Practical Law, Checkpoint, and looking at tax overall. So definitely on the product roadmap, it will have an impact across all of our major platforms. Looking for Ask Westlaw as a key one and Practical Law. When this came out, and this was more on the product side than the marketing, we said, hey, how do we pivot quickly and really adjust our roadmap? The speed with which TR has been operating has been super impressive. Coming from more technology and Amazon and AWS, teams here are really working quickly and adjusting. We see it as a big opportunity for our customers to leverage this. That's how we should evaluate technology, right, Jeff? You know this from 30 years—how does it benefit the end user and the customer? We've said we have great use cases, which we put on our website, we shared at the Microsoft conference we were part of, to say these are how our products will benefit by generative AI.

People, right? Hiring the right people. You talked about the great resignation, but hiring the right people. I would say it's been a challenge for, pick your number, 5, 10, 15 years. But I definitely see, probably more on the product side than the marketing side, just how do we bring in folks. Today we actually have 4,500 technologists, over 125 data scientists, so we got a great base to build from. But I would see that as a, I don't want to call it impediment, but how does it help us get there? Other than that, we got the vision. TR actually has 30 years of AI experience, particularly Westlaw, and multiple years of experience for generative AI. So we are lucky in our category. We've had several acquisitions over the past couple years that have been AI-focused, so we've brought in talent as well. On the marketing side, I think it's just making sure we get out front and lead. I don't know if that's an impediment, but it's a change that we've been making. We do have such a strong story to tell that we've really wanted to make sure we go out loud and proud, lead, and partner with our customers who are turning to us for, hey, how should we use this, what is the right way? Just tons and tons of interest, as you can imagine, from our customers, and really working with them to develop products and bring them in as alpha, beta. And on the marketing side, making sure we get out there and we can tell our story that we have the best products and they're just getting better.

Well, I look for a couple things. Definitely someone that has made an impact or a difference. One of the questions I like to ask is, hey, tell me the biggest impact you've had in the past two years. The years doesn't matter—one, two, three—and trying to understand how people take ownership of their role, drive impact in different ways. That's one. Two, definitely look for a customer focus, somebody who's always asking about the customer, is curious, can understand how to make an impact. Look for people that can innovate. Our job, the customers, the marketing, our jobs are always evolving and changing, so somebody that can be agile and innovate. I think some things to look for are just career trajectory. That can take different avenues, but have you moved across things, have you learned, have you gained new skills, have you shown progress quickly? I do think there's value in different experiences. One thing I do look for, and this is maybe related but different from innovation, is have they taken risks before? I look back on myself. I mentioned earlier my first job is at the Antitrust Division. One of the best decisions I've made in my 30-plus year career is just teaching myself HTML and diving into technology. It's something I was just really interested in, didn't study it per se. I've moved across the country from Boston to Seattle to go work at Amazon. Different types of risks, there's all different types of risks, but I think putting yourself out there and going for it is so important. It's something I look for. It's not definitely the only thing in an interview, but it's something I would definitely advise. People ask me for advice and it comes up, hey, what's your best advice for your younger self? I think that's a good one. The only thing I would say is there's all different types of risks. There's extreme, there's medium. I've worked at startups, I've worked at big companies, I liked both. But those are the key things I look for. There's no one thing, but across looking for folks, that's something.

I would say take some risks. And again, I would caveat, but I think I've taken some, there's probably others I can see, yeah, maybe I should have taken that. And the other thing I would say is move around. Whether it's within a company or different types of roles. Even at Amazon, I was in Amazon Prime, but I went to AWS. Similarities but differences. You get different experiences, I think you grow. And then I would say have some ownership and innovation. Take, dive in, and feel for—again, this is kind of related to the risk—but drive it and own it. It's okay to, everyone always says fail fast, and the truth is it's okay to make mistakes as long as you're doing. That's what I encourage people to do and love it when people just say, I'll do it, I'll take it, and kind of run with that. So it's definitely something advice I do give people when they ask. I feel like I've taken it myself and I think probably could have done a little better sometimes, but overall, very happy with the decisions and reaching out and taking the risk I've made.

This is great, Jeff. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.