C-suite AI leadership: without a full-time hire.

First 90 days

Every stage runs to a defined day range, a single scenario it must resolve, and the condition that has to be met before the next stage starts.

1. 1Days 1 to 15Baseline

   Scenario: Leadership cannot name what AI work is already running, who owns it, or what it costs.

   Work: Maturity assessment across leadership, data, governance, technology, and business value, plus a full inventory of live and shadow AI work.

   Condition to advance: Advance only when the inventory is signed off by the sponsor and at least one owner is named per initiative.

2. 2Days 16 to 30Risk and data check

   Scenario: Pilots are blocked because nobody can confirm the data is usable or the use case is defensible.

   Work: Data readiness review on the two highest value candidates, regulatory exposure mapping, and a gap list against NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act.

   Condition to advance: Advance only when each candidate has an accessible data source and no unresolved high severity legal or privacy blocker.

3. 3Days 31 to 60Blueprint

   Scenario: Ideas outnumber capacity and the board has no basis to fund one over another.

   Work: AI strategy, prioritized pilot slate with cost and benefit ranges, governance operating model, and the board narrative.

   Condition to advance: Advance only when the slate is funded, staffed, and reduced to the pilots the team can actually deliver this quarter.

4. 4Days 61 to 75First pilot in flight

   Scenario: A committed pilot needs to reach real users without becoming a permanent experiment.

   Work: Steering committee live, delivery plan under a single owner, success measures agreed before build, weekly blockers cleared.

   Condition to advance: Advance only when the pilot is in front of real users and its success measures are being recorded, not estimated.

5. 5Days 76 to 90Gate and board update

   Scenario: The organisation has to decide whether to scale, rework, or stop, with evidence rather than optimism.

   Work: GO, CONDITIONAL, or NO-GO gate chaired against the agreed measures, scale plan for what passed, and a board update with the numbers.

   Condition to advance: Scale funding is released only on a GO. A CONDITIONAL result returns to a fixed rework window. A NO-GO closes the pilot and releases the team.

Engagement tiers