Boards swing between enthusiasm and paralysis on AI. The AI for Boards programme replaces both with a position, a twelve-month plan and the vocabulary to hold management to account.
What inspired you to join this programme, and what did you hope to achieve?
AI was on the agenda of every board I sit on, still treated as an IT topic rather than a question of governance. I sit on boards in banking, insurance and industrial technology – regulated environments where oversight is a non-delegable duty. I did not want to improvise my way into it. This programme is built for directors, not engineers: the question is not how the technology works, but what a board must do about it. I also wanted to expand my relevant network. Every director I know is facing the same problem at the same time, and almost nobody has a settled answer.
In what ways has the programme shifted your perspective or influenced your approach to work?
It moved AI from the IT agenda to the board agenda. A board does not need to understand the model. It needs to know which decisions the model influences, who is accountable, and whether it can demonstrate oversight. That reshaped my risk assessment. The various sessions showed why responsible AI principles alone fall short.
Which aspects of the experience stood out most for you?
The cohort, first. Board members from international companies, facing the same issues with the same urgency, and candid about what is not working in their own boardrooms.You learn fast which challenges are universal and which are artefacts of your own jurisdiction – and the network did not end there: each of us left with two accountability partners. Second, the faculty mix. INSEAD academics alongside practitioners and board members. Third, the format: hands-on, very little lecturing and open exchange among peers.
Can you describe a moment or insight that particularly resonated with you?
The build-your-own-agent sprint. We were asked to design an AI tool for our own work as directors. I built a pre-meeting briefing agent: role, knowledge, guardrails, what it must refuse to do. Writing those instructions is exactly what management does when deploying AI across a company.That is when oversight stopped being abstract, and when the scale of the change management became obvious. It is easier to govern something that you have experience with.
Would you recommend this programme to others? If so, what makes it meaningful to you?
Without hesitation, particularly to directors in international, regulated or technically complex industries. Be clear about what it is: not a technical course. If you want model architecture, look elsewhere. If you want to know what your board must be able to demonstrate, and to whom, this is it. Boards swing between enthusiasm and paralysis on AI. The AI for Boards programme replaces both with a position, a twelve-month plan and the vocabulary to hold management to account. It is finally a programme about leadership and vision: strategic thinking and execution are management’s task, but setting the direction and the limits is ours.
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