The new head of the Minneapolis office of Ernst & Young says more business leaders are coming to the legacy accounting and consulting firm looking for help with a very modern issue: artificial intelligence.

"We're now seeing all companies think about AI: How does that impact my business?" Dominic Iannazzo said in a recent interview. "We're seeing investments of billions of dollars in AI applications."

Iannazzo, a Minnesota native, was recently promoted to office managing partner at the EY Minneapolis office, which has nearly 800 employees.

He grew up in Maple Grove and graduated from the University of St. Thomas, where he was in a pre-med program until a mentor encouraged him to try a couple of accounting classes.

Out of college he joined Arthur Anderson, spent some time at 3M, and then joined EY 11 years ago.

The Minneapolis office, which recently moved into 30,000 square feet of the Dayton's Project, is a key spot in EY's global network. EY has more than 700 offices in 150 countries with 65,000 employees in the United States and 375,000 around the world.

Iannazzo is a financial due diligence partner, having worked in the mergers and acquisition space throughout his career. Iannazzo says the Minneapolis office has led EY's Central Region for three of the last four years in M&A thanks to the active portfolio management of companies based here.

The following interview was edited for length and clarity.

Q: What else is the Minneapolis office of EY known for?

A: We have four core practices: assurance, consulting, strategy and transactions and tax.
The practice area that I lead here is strategy and transactions. Within that strategy and transactions umbrella, you have restructuring, as well as a working capital practice that helps unlock cash from balance sheets of companies.

Q: One of the big M&A trends locally and nationally have been an increasing number of spin-offs. What are the benefits of a spin-off?

A: That trend has been great for for EY. We do a lot of the spin work to support companies in that transaction and then transformation. Obviously we want to set both companies up for wild success. In all respects, it comes back to the best way to unlock and maximize shareholder value.

Q: What are the major topics that clients of the Minneapolis office are seeking solutions for today?

A: Strategy and transactions, digital transformation, supply chain optimization, and more recently sustainability have been kind of fundamental. And then more recently, you know, thinking about more advanced technologies like artificial intelligence.

Q: What do clients want to know about generative artificial intelligence?

A: It's real, it's here, it's grabbing headlines, really probably dating back to the end of 2022. A lot of that, at its outset, was drug development and software coding. With business leaders it's about focusing on driving business efficiency and productivity. What are the other implications, whether it be social, ethical or otherwise that I need to consider as I think about the impacts of AI on my sets of products and services?