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centricity, building modular, composable, and increasingly headless platforms that we can orchestrate dynamically.” Cristina oversees these platforms across digital hubs in Poland and India, with teams in the US, Germany, Switzerland, and beyond.
We’ re converging on one integrated transformation where DSO, AI, and architecture evolution all reinforce each other
One integrated transformation
Around the time Cristina stepped into the CIO role, Bayer launched Dynamic Shared Ownership( DSO), a companywide operating model designed to reduce hierarchy, speed innovation, and empower smaller, accountable teams. Almost simultaneously, generative AI exploded into public consciousness, bringing new possibilities and added pressure to rethink long-standing architectural patterns.
“ Sometimes it feels like we’ re part of several transformations at once,” Cristina observes.“ In reality, we’ re converging on one integrated transformation where DSO, AI, and architecture evolution all reinforce each other.”
“ On the technology side, we’ re breaking up traditional systems into smaller, reusable services that we can compose dynamically. Specialized AI agents increasingly orchestrate these components. Teams now ask if every process actually needs a classic user interface, or if we can expose capabilities headlessly and use agents, APIs, or conversational interfaces right inside our collaboration tools. On the organizational side, we align DSO teams to these domains so cross-functional groups own outcomes from start to finish.”
The shared goal is to bring Bayer’ s scientific rigor together with the speed and scale of digital-native tech companies.
Making AI a leadership priority
From the beginning, Cristina has challenged the idea that AI is just another tool. Over the past year and a half, she led the Consumer Health leadership team through an immersion program. She walked the team through the technology landscape, industry shifts, and Bayer’ s biggest opportunities.“ This isn’ t me working in a corner and handing you another tool. We can’ t sit on the sidelines. This is about thinking differently.”
As concepts such as agents and agentic systems entered the conversation, Cristina and her team focused on building basic literacy: what an agent is, what actually sits behind an AI solution, and what it takes to scale beyond impressive demos. That work has expanded from the C-suite into the wider organization as Consumer Health moves from isolated pilots toward systematic, platformenabled AI adoption embedded directly into business workflows.
To keep that momentum going, Consumer Health set up an AI Catalyst Team, a crossfunctional group from across the division.“ This team surfaces promising ideas and links grassroots experimentation with enterprise platforms, making sure AI becomes part of real business processes instead of a side project,” she adds. The team also sets guardrails, standards, and governance, so AI scales responsibly.
Agents and the next generation
Cristina believes the biggest shift isn’ t just about automating tasks- it’ s about reimagining what AI makes possible for the whole organization.“ For me, the interesting question is what happens if we assume agents can do much of the work. If they can deliver speed and scale almost instantly, how do we redesign domains that used to be sequential because of human limitations?” she wonders.
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