# Nigel Vaz

CEO, Publicis Sapient. TIME100 AI 2026, Leaders. He says AI turned one client's 10-year migration of legacy COBOL code to Java into a three-year project. ([tearsheet.co](https://tearsheet.co/partner-content/how-ai-is-disrupting-financial-services-and-how-companies-can-respond-with-publicis-sapient-ceo-nigel-vaz/))

- Career: DigitasLBi (Global President, 2016–2017); Publicis Sapient (CEO, from 2000); Internet Solutions (Co-founder and Managing Director, 1996–2000) ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nvaz), [nigelvaz.com](https://www.nigelvaz.com/about))
- TIME profile: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/nigel-vaz/
- Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/most-influential-people-in-ai/nigel-vaz

- Before joining Sapient he was an entrepreneur, co-founding a public company in internet consulting and connectivity in the 1990s. ([nigelvaz.com](https://www.nigelvaz.com/about))
- Has spent more than 25 years at the same firm, rising from director at Sapient in 2000 to global CEO of Publicis Sapient in 2019. ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nvaz))
- Soon after launching Sapient in the UK, he walked away from a client because they disagreed on how its culture needed to change. ([adammendler.com](https://www.adammendler.com/nigel-vaz/))
- Says one client's move off decades-old COBOL code to Java, planned to take 10 years, is now being done in three with AI. ([tearsheet.co](https://tearsheet.co/partner-content/how-ai-is-disrupting-financial-services-and-how-companies-can-respond-with-publicis-sapient-ceo-nigel-vaz/))
- His firm's survey of 1,550 AI decision-makers found 73% use AI regularly at work, but only 10% say it is core to how their business runs. ([adammendler.com](https://www.adammendler.com/nigel-vaz/))
- Says the big AI opportunity is not automating today's work but to "fundamentally reimagine the future of how work gets done." ([time.com](https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/nigel-vaz/))