Rob Saliterman joins us this month to discuss how AI is being applied to professional services at Harvey, where he has served as VP of Sales since August 2023. Rob is another BCAer who has skillfully managed his post-Administration career with stops at Google, Snap, and other tech firms. He was also the original post-Presidency Communications Director in the Office of George W. Bush. He also shares lessons learned from his time at the White House, U.S. Treasury and on the Hill.
Q: Can you tell us about Harvey, a company focused on applying AI to professional services?
Harvey is a professional services platform engineered with AI for law, tax, and finance. Our goal is to make it easier and faster for lawyers, accountants, regulators and more to achieve their business objectives and serve their clients.
We’ve just closed our Series C funding round, with backing from Google Ventures, OpenAI, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins. We’re proud to be partnered with more than 100 customers, including top law firms like Paul Weiss, DLA Piper, and A&O Sherman, as well as in-house teams at companies including PwC, KKR, and Bridgewater. These organizations are using Harvey to free up their teams for the big-picture work that really moves the needle for their clients, incorporating us into their regular workflows to streamline processes and enhance productivity
What makes Harvey the leader in this space is our unique team that combines decades of domain expertise with engineering excellence to build practical solutions powered by proprietary generative AI models. Our AI talent comes from tech leaders like Tesla, Apple, Google, and Meta, while our product team is led by a former Wachtell partner. Plus, we’re thrilled to count Mike Meece (DoC, EOP) as an investor and key advisor and someone I’m honored to be able to work with again.
Q: What differentiates Harvey from other generative AI tools?
We’ve always known that building a truly GenAI platform for professional services would be hard. Lawyers, for example, require sophisticated analysis across complicated, long-form documents often across multiple jurisdictions. Foundation AI models – like ChatGPT – have been built for basic consumer use cases and are not tailored to this complexity. Given the vast amount of documentation lawyers need to leverage, we knew we needed to build a tailored AI solution.
We leverage a range of large language models, including custom models that are tuned for legal analysis. To continually improve our platform and keep up with the pace of AI innovation, we’ve also partnered with leading foundation models and cloud providers, such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Mistral.
AI adoption is still in its early stages, but we’re really proud of the differentiated platform we’ve built so far and the positive customer feedback we receive every day.
Q: You have had an interesting career evolution, moving from communications roles in government to working at tech companies like Google, Snapchat, Stripe and now Harvey over the past 15 years. What principles guided your career moves?
I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing people and companies that are growing fast and having an impact on the world. Working at founder-led companies reminds me of working in government and politics, where the leader sets the vision and the culture for the whole organization. And the pace, intensity, and energy of startups is similar to the world of politics – always dynamic, always exciting.
Another aspect that’s been consistent across my career is the need to communicate effectively to different audiences. Whether it’s in politics, media, or enterprise sales, you have to understand what matters to your stakeholders in order to communicate with and serve them effectively.
Q: What leadership lessons did you learn from your time in the Administration that continue to serve you well today?
One of the most important lessons I learned at the Treasury Department in 2008 was to face challenges head-on. Secretary Hank Paulson had a clear and powerful mantra: Run toward problems, not away from them. This mindset was crucial during the financial crisis, where we had to act quickly and boldly, and this approach to leadership still guides me today.
Q: When you look back on your time in the Administration, who or what had the most impact on you?
One of the people who had a lasting impact on me was Tony Snow (EOP). Tony was not only a brilliant communicator; he was a master at making complex messages clear and compelling. But what impressed me the most about Tony was his relentless optimism and grace under pressure, even in the most difficult situations.
