OMERS Private Equity leader discusses his journey from advisor to practitioner, sharing an empathy-driven approach to AI-led transformation.
Emma Coppin
Multimedia Content Lead, Thought Leadership and Customer Stories
Workday
In the middle of a busy New York schedule, Neil Bansal, managing director of operations & strategy at OMERS Private Equity, is learning to speak Thai. It is a language of five tones where a slight inflection can turn a greeting into a joke, or a simple ‘come here’ into an accidental comment about a horse.
“In Thai, I’m speaking like a three-year-old,” Bansal laughs. “I say something ridiculous and the locals laugh with me. But that’s part of the excitement. Transformation is meant to be hard. It’s meant to take you to a different type of place than you might be in other parts of your life.”
This pursuit of the “quiet transformation” – the invisible, difficult work of growth – is the thread that pulls together his non-linear career. Whether he is navigating the linguistic hurdles of Southeast Asia or the digital roadmaps of a multi-billion dollar portfolio, Bansal has moved through the world of “cash, booze and sneakers” with a singular focus: moving past the elegant theory of advising to the messy, rewarding reality of the practitioner.
"Transformation is meant to be hard. It’s meant to take you to a different type of place than you might be in other parts of your life."
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Bansal spent the first decade of his career on the advising side, polishing strategies at McKinsey and Citigroup. But he found himself increasingly restless.
“I kept asking people, ‘Did they actually do that work?’” he recalls. “A mentor finally said to me, ‘Neil, you keep asking what happens after we leave. Maybe you should be the one who stays.’”
Bansal took that advice to heart. He transitioned into the driver's seat, taking on roles that had never existed before – from building the first operationally focused transformation team at BNP Paribas to serving as the first chief strategy and transformation officer at Foot Locker. In every role, he leaned into the outsider’s advantage, asking the questions that insiders had long since stopped asking.
Now, as Managing Director at OMERS Private Equity, Bansal is at the forefront of the AI revolution. But his approach to technology is filtered through the same “boots on the ground” empathy that defined his time in retail and banking. He isn't interested in AI for the sake of corporate motion; he’s interested in AI that serves the 665,000 pensioners – the firefighters and police officers – whose futures he helps protect.
“A CEO I respect once said you can’t outsource your brain, your eyeballs or your heart,” Bansal says. “Your judgment, your perception, how you care – that will never be outsourced.”
To find where AI can actually help, he poses a simple question: “What’s dumb around here?” It’s something he’s asked everywhere from Manhattan skyscrapers to HVAC call centres in Kentucky. By identifying the repetitive tasks and time-consuming manual activities, he frees up humans to do the most human of activities.
"Your judgment, your perception, how you care – that will never be outsourced."
For Bansal, the practitioner’s path is about more than immediate results; it’s about the durable legacy left behind. It’s found in the 60-person team he built from scratch at a global bank, and in the culture shift at Foot Locker where 50,000 employees moved from fearing change to driving it.
Today, as he helps OMERS Private Equity portfolio companies accelerate progress on AI, his focus remains on the long-term security of the hundreds of thousands of pensioners who count on his judgment. Whether he is mastering a new language or a new technology, he understands that real transformation isn’t found in a corporate deck. It’s found in the quiet, persistent effort of staying in the room, doing the work, and ensuring the payoff is felt by the people who matter most.
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