Ivey Chiu: Leading Ethical AI and Building Teams That Thrive
By: Caleb Brown
July 15, 2025 21 min read
When Ivey Chiu joined TELUS more than a decade ago, she didn’t expect to become one of its leading voices in AI ethics, community building, and inclusive leadership. She was just looking for a job that gave her flexibility to support her family. But over time, Ivey transformed that flexibility into a platform for innovation, representation, and meaningful change.
As senior manager of AI research partnerships, AI for Good, and innovation, Ivey brings a systems-level mindset to every initiative. Whether she’s scaling a hybrid team, writing about responsible AI, or founding communities for women in tech, her goal is always to build cultures where people use their skills to create a positive impact.
Creating Alignment Through Values-Driven Innovation
Ivey joined TELUS with a background in engineering, data science, and academia. But it was her ability to translate big questions into action that shaped her AI leadership role.
One of her first major contributions wasn’t a product but a document. “One of the white papers that I wrote was on ethical guidelines for AI,” she says. “At that point, there was not a lot on responsible AI and AI governance.”
That early work laid the foundation for what would become TELUS’s AI for Good initiatives. Since then, Ivey has guided projects focused on topics including sustainability, healthcare, and food security. “We want to use it to support the notion that we all want to be able to use our talents for good,” she explains.
Her team won a Global Generative AI Award in 2024 for a project using computer vision to monitor vegetation health against risks such as deforestation and wildfires. “People are like, ‘Oh wow. I can use my talents and apply them in a way that actually makes the world a better place,’” Ivey says. “That's why we're motivated to do more in that space.”
Scaling Community in a Hybrid World
At TELUS, hybrid work isn’t an experiment. It’s a decadelong practice that has evolved with the company’s needs and is essential for employee productivity and connection. “It was very helpful that I could finish my meetings at 5:00 and go out to daycare to get [my kids] at 5:15,” Ivey says.
Building connection in a dispersed team takes intention. Ivey outlines a layered strategy, including structured virtual activities such as game days and book clubs, local in-person meetups, and informal chats that fuel cross-functional collaboration. “It's all the people that you meet casually that also helps to enrich your work life,” she says. “And believe it or not, it often also helps in your professional life.”
Through onboarding, social introductions, and active networking via the TELUS Engineering Community, Ivey makes sure new hires feel supported right away. “That's really the power of community,” she says. “And I'm very fortunate to have been so involved with that community.”
Culture Starts With Communication and Visibility
Building better tech starts with building better teams. Ivey has learned over her career that communication, storytelling, and mentoring are essential skills for engineers who want to make a broader impact.
“One of the things that we are recognizing within engineering … is that communications is very key,” she says. “The ability to write these emails, to communicate, the ability to ask the questions that you need to clarify anything, is very important.”
She uses those same skills to increase transparency around TELUS’ AI work. Ivey helps explain what technical teams do and why it matters, both through internal content and public-facing posts.
“Being able to tell the story of AI at TELUS, with the help of many team members of course, gives people an idea of what actually goes into an AI team,” she says. “Who are these AI product managers? What do the machine learning engineers do?”
Another principle for Ivey is representation. As the founder of Women Inclusivity Network, TELUS Engineer Community (WIN-TEC), Ivey helped women in engineering become more visible and develop their leadership skills. “We emphasize that this is a space for women and our allies to get together to network and to also celebrate during events like International Women's Day or the International Women in Engineering Day in June,” she explains. “We're working on this together.”
By combining technical strategy with human connection, Ivey helps countless tech workers communicate the value of their contributions and lead with confidence.
Transcript
Ivey Chiu:
We all want to be able to use our talents for good, and all of TELUS is full of people who are immensely talented, and they truly do want to help the world out. When we work on these sustainability or health projects, people are like, “Oh wow. I can use my talents and apply them in a way that actually makes the world a better place.”
Caleb Brown:
Hey everyone, and welcome to Keep Moving Forward, the podcast from X-Team for tech professionals who are passionate about growth, leadership, and innovation. I'm your host, Caleb Brown, and in each episode, we'll dive into candid conversations with the tech industry's brightest minds, seasoned leaders, forward-thinking engineers, and visionary experts.
Today, I'm excited to talk with Ivey Chiu, senior manager of AI research partnerships, AI for Good, and innovation, at TELUS. With a background that spans academia, industry, and internal leadership, Ivey brings a deeply human and systems-oriented perspective to the world of AI. In this episode, we explore how Ivey went from building circuits with her dad to becoming a champion for ethical AI and inclusive engineering cultures. We talk about formalizing AI for Good programs, designing hybrid work cultures that actually work, and why soft skills like communication are the critical edge for engineering teams.
Ivey also shares lessons from founding TELUS's WIN-TEC Network and her approach to developing responsible AI that improves both human and environmental outcomes. Whether you're navigating the future of AI, building strong hybrid teams, or leading with flexibility and empathy, this conversation has a lot to offer. Let's dive in.
I'm super-happy that you're here, I'm excited to dive into this conversation. I was able to meet with you on a prep call before this last week, and really you have a super-interesting background in both the industry world, working at eBay and things like that, but also a ton in the academia world, and then the blending of the two. So I wanted to see if you could just set the stage a little bit, walk us through your journey from working on circuits with your father to becoming an AI innovation leader at TELUS.
Ivey Chiu:
Sure, thanks, Caleb. For sure, I think one of the things that surprises and amazes myself, as well, but a lot of people, is that my career journey has definitely not been linear. And whenever someone says to me, “So what's your five-year plan?” there's a canned answer that I can give, but just knowing what I've worked on over my entire career, it's certainly nothing that I could have predicted.
So I think definitely my interest in STEM, and engineering, certainly, came from my dad, who was recently—well, not that recent anymore, time flies—but he was an electrician until he retired. So he worked at a lot of the major manufacturing plants, like in automotive and consumer packaged goods, and there would always be some interesting projects that he would be working on. And of course, little bits and pieces like circuits would always make their way home. And my brother and I would play with them, we would look at them, and I think that really ignited my interest in STEM.
After high school, I went into engineering at the University of Toronto, I'm based in Toronto. And I went to the engineering science program, which is regarded as one of Canada's best engineering programs, and it's actually very highly ranked globally, as well. Did my engineering science degree, I specialized in manufacturing systems design, and I was very keen to get out of school and work within manufacturing.
If you had said towards the end of my graduate work, “What's your five-year plan?” I would've said, get a faculty job and then eventually get tenure at the university. But then there was a pivot, I said, “OK, interviewed at five schools, it's not working out, time is running out.” Also, at this point, I had two young kids, as well, so I'm just like, really, I want to be able to have the ability to do things like take them to Disney and buy them toys, which requires a job. So that's where I made the pivot to eBay, I worked there for a couple of years as their data analyst in the Toronto office. It's quite a small office at that time. As most folks know, eBay headquarters is in San Jose, but I worked in Toronto, which was quite small, which meant that I was actually exposed to all sorts of analytics, from shipping analytics to verticals—looking at electronics versus fashion—to even working on projects like the impact of weather and foreign exchange on the eBay ecosystem.
I definitely had a great breadth of experience there because I was working in a fairly small office, and there were a lot of marketing requests, as well, because that's primarily the function of that eBay office at that time. It was like, how do we market eBay to Canadians? So got a lot of skills, like working on how do you use analytics to support a marketing campaign, and then how do you actually analyze a marketing campaign. So no A/B tests. In academia, we would say, statistically, we would write a T-test, things like that.
So worked at eBay, and then worked there for a couple of years, and then the opportunity came to move again to TELUS, which is one of Canada's large three telecom providers and also technology company. Again, it came from my network, from someone that I went and completed my undergrad with. So the opportunity came, moved over to TELUS, spent a few years really learning the wireless side of the TELUS business. So in Canada, they provide wireless communications, as well as wireline, and then TELUS really has a lot of technology holdings, including in health, security, and also agriculture. So very much a leading Canadian technology company.
And then around in 2017, 2018, I was tapped on the shoulder by some of the leaders saying, “Ivey, can you start looking at this AI thing?” And I was like, “Can I? Of course I can.” And then interestingly enough, some of the first assignments was not necessarily technical. It was one of the white papers that I wrote, the initial white papers that I wrote was on ethical guidelines for AI, which at that point, there was not a lot on responsible AI and AI governance. And I think most folks in AI and software and analytics will have at least heard of responsible AI, ethical AI guidelines, but back in 2017, there was not a lot. And then, definitely, another one of the white papers that I wrote at the time was on the impact of AI on the future of work. And now we are totally experiencing, what does AI mean for work? So I wrote some of those internal white papers, and then as the organization transformed and evolved into more AI focus, I became part of the AI accelerator.
And then interestingly enough, around 2021, 2022, I was also tapped into, first of all, participate in something called the TELUS Engineering Community, which is a community of about 1,500 members at TELUS who are either technical professionals, like engineers or technicians, or in software. We even have some mathematicians. Or, that they are just interested in learning about technology and technology breakthroughs. So I was tapped to join that and help out. And then in 2022, I was actually elected to lead the TELUS engineering community, or TEC, and I just finished my tenure as president of the TELUS Engineering Community.
That's my career path. I know, I was going to say in a nutshell, but none of that was brief because of all the twists and turns. And I left out a lot of things, including what I do a lot of now, which is socials for the AI accelerator team and being able to communicate how TELUS uses AI and then communicating what our team does with AI and what our team is like in terms of the people. But definitely, I draw a lot upon my passions and my strengths that I developed in my grad school where—I've talked about teaching, researching, and writing papers, I do a lot of that.
Caleb Brown:
Yes. It does seem like an unconventional, I suppose, path overall, but you can see where your interests in areas that you're particularly good in, you can see where they weave in and out of these different areas.
You said something really interesting earlier, which was you had been rejected from multiple faculty positions despite having that full scholarship, and then that changed your trajectory a little bit and how that five-year plan changed from that. I just wanted to know how that experience shaped your career path, as we talked about, but I was interested in diving a little bit more into that and just how it more so shaped your leadership approach moving forward.
Ivey Chiu:
In terms of shaping my leadership approach, I think what it has taught me, and also in terms of all the mentors and sponsors that I've had, is that you need to be flexible. It may seem devastating, at the point when you've had your fifth interview that you set up—and these interviews aren't short, they could take weeks, if not months, to set up. And then when you have five of them, it's a long time. One school even flew me out to their campus out in DC, so you can imagine it was a lot of prep. The interviews themselves are long, they are a couple of days. But I think what has taught me is that if you can be flexible and rely on your other experiences, you could take them as learning experiences to carry forth into your future endeavors, and in this case, your leadership.
And running something as large as the TELUS Engineering Community, where it's like 1,500 members and a core group of 27 executive members on the committee, things will always happen, something will happen. And if someone's like, “Well, I can't get this to line up,” and they're just stressed out about that, I'm like, well, then maybe we can do it another time or another format. We can certainly be flexible. And I think that really helps to reframe things for people because there are all sorts of options.
Caleb Brown:
For sure. Well, I think that'll be a good jump into my next question, which is, at TELUS, I believe you've worked in that hybrid environment for a decade or so. I wanted to know if you could tell me about some of the key strategies for building a strong remote team connection?
Ivey Chiu:
For sure. So I've been at TELUS for 10 years now. I just passed my 10th service anniversary November. And believe me, I never thought that I would be anywhere for this length of time. Even my whole graduate school experience was not 10 years. And I think the hybrid work styles really allows for team members to be flexible and to introduce work-life balance into their work. For me, when I first started at TELUS, I had a—how old were they?—4-year-old and a 6-year-old, so it was very helpful that I could do things like pop dinner into the oven at 4 p.m.. it really was helpful that I could finish my meetings at 5 and go out to daycare to get them at 5:15, things like that.
I think what is key to building a strong sense of team in such a hybrid environment is that you do have some sort of virtual events, like you can play all sorts of virtual games now online, as you're probably aware, and then also being able to have some in-person events. Now, I think at TELUS, we're extremely fortunate that most of our team members are fairly close to the major offices like Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, and Vancouver. So if we say, let's do a team-building event on such and such date, most people can plan to do that. And then I try to also make sure that I go to the office once a week or so, also to go out to a lot of conferences, so sometimes that once a week dwindles when it's conference season.
But it's all the people that you meet casually that also helps to enrich your work life. And believe it or not, it often also helps in your professional life because someone will say, “I'm having some issues with doing this procurement process.” And I was like, “I know so-and-so from procurement, let me just shoot them a question.” Now that person may not know, but they might say, “Here, look at this link, or talk to this person.” And I think those are also very extremely valuable sorts of relationships to build, both personally and professionally, right? Not only are you just meeting interesting people, but you're also meeting people who can help you out. So having that hybrid, where you're virtual and in person, really helps.
And then I think when people think virtual, remote, they think, everyone's just sitting quietly by themselves doing their work in their home office. But really, we have chat groups, we have things like, we could have virtual game day, where people will log in on their phone or on their browser. And then there are also other things that can be run virtually, like book clubs, discussion clubs, support groups, and things like that. I think those are all the tactical and strategic things that companies can take into account when they're trying to build a good hybrid work culture.
Caleb Brown:
Yeah, I absolutely agree. What about your approach to onboarding new team members in this hybrid environment, to just make sure that they feel connected and supported right away? How do you do that for someone that's coming into that environment new?
Ivey Chiu:
Like I mentioned, we're very fortunate that TELUS is a national company, so there's almost always someone who can meet with people face to face in an office. Having said that, I've definitely supervised some folks who have been 100% virtual because by the fact that they live in Calgary, and I live in Toronto. But I think one of the important things is that, even if they're not part of a program that they're being onboarded to, or if there's not a big team established in that center, or that central office—I don't actually mean CO, but in that office that they're assigned to. it's like even if it's more of your social network within work to introduce people, so that they can meet a couple of friendly people and just start their networking journey at TELUS.
So, definitely having been a part of the TELUS Engineering Community and running that, I certainly have a large network because there are 1,500 members and we've managed to get about 600 members on our Google chat. So there's going to be someone, somewhere, who you can reach out to when you're saying, “I need someone in Calgary, I have a new person, if someone could just have a coffee with them.” So I think that's really the power of community, and I'm very fortunate to have been so involved with that community, that TELUS Engineering Community specifically, but I think TELUS as a whole has done a very good job in bringing community to this hybrid work.
Caleb Brown:
I would actually love to expand on that because, truly, my next question was going to be that when we met on the prep call, you had emphasized the importance of communication in engineering. And so since we're already on the topic, I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you help technical team members develop those soft skills.
Ivey Chiu:
One of the things that we are recognizing within engineering, and also both at the university level and at the professional practice level, is that communications is very key. And it's one of those things that, I remember when I was going through my undergrad, I had one course, and we were ugh, the eye-rolling. But I think as you keep working in a technical profession, you realize how important it is. And then the ability to write these emails, to communicate, the ability to ask the questions that you need to clarify anything, is very important within engineering and any technical profession.
And then, as we were talking about previously, when we have these remote and dispersed workforces, sometimes there just isn't an ability to immediately ask for clarification. Like with Google Chat or Slack, it's easier now, but they could have walked away to eat their lunch, and you won't get that clarification until an hour later. But to be able to frame your thoughts and communicate it is key. And then, also knowing when to ask for a virtual meeting versus just trying to write 10 different email chains or having a Slack that is pages long. Sometimes that's just the easiest way to do it, is just to have a conversation.
And definitely, even things like when I look at, I always say writing those white papers on AI ethics and the impact of AI on the future of work, I'm not sure if anyone really read them, but being able to just write something, put words to paper, I think that was actually a pivotal moment in my career where I went from data scientists to working on AI. And as the AI revolution, as they call it, started to come faster and faster, just to be able to do that.
And then what I've been doing a lot recently is running the AI Accelerators LinkedIn Showcase page, and being able to tell the story of AI at TELUS, with the help of many team members, of course, being able to write the success stories of the teams, which is more long format. And then also just being able to put together team member spotlights so that people get an idea of like, what actually goes into an AI team? Who are these AI product managers? What do the machine learning engineers do? To be able to do that, and it's one of those things, where I won the TELUS social media Influencer award, and it's really a testament of how I was able to use something that I did a lot of, which is writing and communicating, and using it to my advantage. To actually be able to influence for good. So while I'm not writing scholarly papers, I'm writing social media posts, and really it's the same thing—you're still telling a story using your communication skills.
Caleb Brown:
I did want to expand a little bit on AI and everything you've been working on there. I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit about your experience in leading AI for Good, that portfolio and its impact. I know we've touched on that, but I thought it'd be good to expand on it.
Ivey Chiu:
One of the things that I'm working on right now is trying to formalize that program within TELUS. Up until now, we'll do a project with, say, one of our academic collaborators, and we're like, “It's an AI for Good project.” So we took a really project approach, and now I'm trying to bring it up to a formalized program. And I think what we find with AI for Good-type projects, so we've done a couple in sustainability, and last year we actually won the Global GenAI Award for one of our projects that involved using a computer vision and genAI to monitor vegetation health. Because, as we're aware, deforestation is bad, but then also on the other flip side, in this age of wildfires, coincidentally, overgrowth of vegetation is also bad. So we actually won the Global GenAI Award for our work on the application of computer vision and genAI to monitor vegetation growth.
We've done some work in health. In the early-ish days of COVID, we also worked with the Vector Institute as a collaborator, and some other sponsored companies, too, to start identifying long-COVID symptoms from social media. And this was before people could publish papers on it because, as we're aware, the publication cycle is long, it could be years. And people, a lot of those in the health space, they were already aware that there was something longer-acting than the acute infection. So that's where we started to take a look at social media feeds to identify these long-COVID symptoms.
And we've done some stuff on food waste just because food insecurity is an issue despite you and I living in the most prosperous countries on earth. We've definitely done projects in all of those areas, and now we're trying to formalize it so that it's not just these disparate projects all over the place. We want to use it to support the notion that we all want to be able to use our talents for good.
And all of TELUS is full of people who are immensely talented, and they truly do want to help the world out. And TELUS, actually, as a technology company, they are committed to using their technology for good, so it's one of those things that we're like, it's all aligned with what the company commitments are and also what the highly talented team members at TELUS want to do. Like I said, there's only so many of the same thing that you could do, and then when we work on these sustainability or health projects, people are like, “Oh wow. I can use my talents and apply them in a way that actually makes the world a better place.” That's why we're motivated to be able to do more in that space.
Caleb Brown:
Awesome. I just have a few more questions for you, but a few that I wanted to make sure that we did get to today is, interested in what strategies you found effective—I believe we talked a little bit about this on our prep call—what strategies you found effective for encouraging women in STEM, in general or from within your organization, to move up and perhaps into leadership positions? Just curious, overall, your thoughts on that.
Ivey Chiu:
That's a great question, Caleb. And I think those of us in technology, we're aware that it's not a localized issue. So what I worked on at TELUS, when I was leading the TELUS Engineering Community as president, was I founded the Women Inclusivity Network, or we call it WIN-TEC, so W-I-N, TEC, TELUS Engineer Community, so I founded that. And what we focus on within WIN-TEC, is we focus on creating a space for women within TELUS who are interested in technology. So that includes those who are technical in their day-to-day job, as well as those who are interested in technology. What we emphasize is that we're working on this together, not just as women, but men and women, because we recognize that we need to work together. It's very rare that you would get a chance within society to just have women only or men only.
We emphasize that this is a space for women and our allies to get together to network and to also celebrate during events like International Women's Day or the International Women in Engineering Day in June. So we put on events for awareness, and also put on events for mentoring and learning. And one of the things that came out of TEC, in general, is that within that group of 27 executive members that I believe I mentioned earlier, is that we have a gender parity within that group. So that's the group that runs all of the events, including WIN-TEC, but including all the other webinars and the innovation challenge and everything.
So I think it's one of those groups or one of those things where this is the opportunity for women, and we're seeing a lot of younger women step up into leadership roles and get that experience. And it's one of those things where it's also because I was a woman leading TEC as president—which, my term ended—people said, that's possible. So it's one of those things where it's like, I've managed to build up the momentum by attracting women, and then more women joined, and more women followed, and then we were able to do things like put on the women in STEM activities. So it really does start representation. I think it’s a good way of starting it and then having those events. So I don't think it matters which way you start it, but you just need to start that ball rolling, so to speak.
And of course, we also network with the other women's groups in TELUS. So TELUS has Connections, which is the women's resource group, which is all across TELUS, all types of professions. But I think making a space for women in tech, for sure, and celebrating and commemorating International Women's Day, International Women in Engineering Day, and to just bring the awareness out.
Caleb Brown:
Yeah, that makes sense. I like to wrap up things with a little bit of a future outlook kind of thing. I always think that's fascinating to hear future perspectives from our guests. I was interested about how you see the role of AI, we talked a lot about AI, you've been involved in it for a while, the role of AI evolving in telecommunications over the next—I was going to say five to 10 years. That's such a long outlook at this point that I won't do that to you, but just in general in the next couple of years, how you see that evolving?
Ivey Chiu:
Well, there will be AI a lot applied within the network, and we're talking about things for efficiency both in terms of reducing latency and increasing bandwidth, as well as other things, too, you would think of more operational, but in terms of energy conservation, as well. So we've worked on some initiatives where we are trying to optimize things like heating and cooling for network operations. And I think we're all aware that, with the increased demand on energy, with the increase of even things like electric vehicles coming on grid, genAI, which is also a big consumer of electricity, and also 5G networks, which also requires more electricity/energy, I think we're all aware that we need to try to optimize that energy consumption. And AI or just some more optimized approaches to these networks, and powering and cooling of the networks, will definitely come in play.
We're aware that some energy sources are cleaner than others, and also, there are just some operations that you don't necessarily need to power 100% of the time. So I think a lot of that will come into play. Maybe not so visible, but when we're talking about something as large as a mobile network, even 2% is a huge decrease in energy consumption. And the other piece is decrease in energy consumption, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. So I think that's what we're aiming for.
And if just you think bigger picture with the rollout of more EVs, more use of genAI large language models, there's only so much electricity that we can produce at one time and pump through the grid. That's why it's in everyone's best interest to apply what they can, and in this case, AI to optimize their use of energy no matter what you're using. So I think that's a big one.
And certainly, I think in terms of customer experience—and that's not just the telecom approach—but the use of AI in terms of being able to increase customer experience by serving them faster and also with a more personalized approach. For example, having just all your products and services maybe in one place, so that you could say, you're not calling about your cell phone or your cable or your internet, you're just calling about your teleservices. But that's applicable in any industry, really. If you're calling about your groceries, it's not like, well, I'm calling about that delivery or that other service that I bought, but everything. And I think it's not necessarily just AI, but just being able to customize that approach and to serve the customers faster.
Caleb Brown:
Absolutely. Super-fascinating stuff, I'm excited to continue to watch how AI plays out in all of these different areas, but a good point to end on, I believe. But Ivey, thank you so much. This was really enjoyable. I learned a lot. I really appreciate your time.
Ivey Chiu:
Thank you for the invitation. It's always great to share and have people learn.
Caleb Brown:
100%, yeah. I think we have a good audience for that, so thank you so much.
Ivey Chiu:
Great, take care.
Caleb Brown:
That was a truly inspiring conversation with Ivey, full of grounded insight on how to lead with purpose in a rapidly evolving tech world. What stood out most was Ivey's commitment to making AI meaningful—not just innovative for its own sake, but aligned with values like sustainability, inclusion, and well-being. Her work turning scattered AI for Good efforts into a formalized program shows what it looks like to lead systematic change from within. And her emphasis on communication, flexibility, and representation reminds us that building better tech starts with building better teams. Ivey's story is a testament to what's possible when you stay open to change, invest in people, and bring your whole self to work.
Join us next time for more insightful conversations with tech leaders who inspire us to grow, lead and innovate. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Music, and don't forget to share this episode if it resonated with you. Until next time.
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