Stephanie Richardson
Steph Richardson is a Digital Capability Consultant with Spark New Zealand, specialising in information management, Microsoft 365, and digital transformation. She works with organisations to improve how information is structured, governed, and used; turning messy, hard-to-navigate environments into practical, scalable systems that support everyday work and future innovation. Steph brings experience across enterprise applications, business transformation, and change delivery, with a strong grounding in business analysis and process improvement. Her focus is always on what works in the real world, helping teams adopt better ways of working, not just designing them on paper. Known for her warm, grounded style, Steph is passionate about making information management and AI approachable and useful, so organisations can build confidence, capability, and long-term value.
Presentation: Information Isn’t Sexy – But It Will Trip You Up
Why AI won’t save organisations that can’t find their own information
AI is the exciting part of the conversation. Information is the part everyone assumes is already under control. But what if it’s not?
Across organisations, critical knowledge lives everywhere; SharePoint sites, Teams channels, inboxes, shared drives, legacy systems… and in people’s heads. Ownership is unclear. Documents are duplicated. Processes are inconsistently captured. “Current state” often becomes whatever the loudest voice in the room remembers.
Then along comes AI; expected to find answers, summarise knowledge, and transform the business.
What’s the catch? AI can only work with what it’s given. If information is fragmented, outdated, or untrusted, AI doesn’t create clarity; it creates a faster, more convincing version of confusion.
This session is a wake-up call for Business Analysts.
Because this is our space. We are the ones trained to question, connect, and make sense of complexity.
We’ll explore:
- Why information debt is one of the biggest hidden risks in AI
- How poor information practices quietly undermine business outcomes
- What BAs can do to restore structure, ownership, and trust in information
No hype. No magic wand. Just a practical look at the messy foundations behind every transformation.
Information isn’t sexy. But it’s where transformation fails.