AI at the Top — The Strategic Leader
Decide it, cost it, govern it, lead it. One day for the leaders who own the budget, the roadmap, the OKRs and the people — score and cost your AI bets, write the policy that keeps them safe, and run the change without breaking your numbers. The outcome is leadership; AI is just the tool.
Workshop17 · V&A Waterfront, Cape Town · In-person · max 13 seats · always live, never recorded · 09h00–16h00 · Level 3 of the Proven Path Professional Certificate ·
The leaders who organise work and own business decisions.
People whose teams are already shipping AI — and who now have to decide which bets to fund, which to kill, what 12 months will cost, who governs it, how OKRs change, and how to roll it all out without breaking Q4 numbers.
Team managers & department heads
You run a team that's experimenting with AI. You want a framework for deciding what gets funded, what gets killed, and how the team's OKRs change because of it.
Portfolio & programme leaders
You decide where money and people go. You want a scoring lens, a cost+value model, and kill criteria you can defend to a sceptical board.
Directors & decision-makers
You're accountable for the change landing — and for what happens when it goes wrong. You want a policy, an oversight model and a 90-day plan that survives the adjustment dip.
What this isn't: a tools workshop. No prompting, no coding. We assume your team has done AI at Work or AI at Scale — and you're now the one being asked "OK, what do we DO about it?"
"Who governs this?"
It's the question your board, your auditor and your biggest customer are all about to ask. Most leaders have no answer, because nobody has taught them one. A full block of the day is now spent building yours — and you leave with it written down.
Your AI readiness score
Six dimensions — lead, learn, access, secure, scale, automate — scored out of 30. You score the running case first, then your own organisation, privately. Then the floor rule: your AI ambition is capped by your lowest dimension, never your average. That lowest number is your next 90 days.
Your AI policy — one page
Seven clauses, not thirty pages. Approved tools, three data tiers, disclosure, named accountability — and oversight tiered to risk: what runs, what a human reviews, and what pauses for a signature. Plus what POPIA and the EU AI Act already require of a South African business today.
Your centre of excellence
Centralised, federated or embedded — which shape fits your size, the five roles it needs (not five headcount), the six things that belong on its backlog, and the "not yet" test that stops you standing one up a year too early.
Own, rent or build
The sovereignty call, on evidence rather than instinct. Where your data actually lives, what portability costs, and the honest economics of self-hosting — including the South African reality that a local cloud region is not a local AI region.
Four signed leadership artefacts you can table at your next exec meeting.
Running case: Karoo Logistics — a Cape Town logistics company, three months after AI at Scale. Sam Naidoo (Operations Director) has shipped three production agents and is asking for budget to scale. You play CEO Mvelo Khoza. Different facts, same shape as your business — and from the governance block onward, the lens turns to your own organisation.
- A scored and costed AI portfolio — six initiatives ranked on value × effort × AI-readiness × human-agent risk, with a Fund / Pilot / Park / Kill decision on each; then a 12-month cost and value model on the winners, a payback month, a kill criterion written before you fund, and the exec scorecard that tells you it's working.
- Your AI governance pack — a readiness score for your own organisation, a one-page AI policy with your data tiers and oversight tiering, a centre-of-excellence shape with five named roles, and a sovereignty decision with a 90-day exit test.
- OKRs reframed for an AI-enabled team — retire / refactor / add, with output KRs replaced by outcomes, plus the two KRs nobody adds until something breaks: team health and transition performance.
- A 90-day change plan + weekly comms calendar — three horizons (announce · adopt · embed), the adjustment dip named and defended, a human-agent risk register with owners from your real org chart, and the one sentence you will say when the agent gets it wrong in public.
- Three laminated A4 cards — the reference card (decision loop, cost lines, leading vs lagging, readiness bands, the seven policy clauses, the sovereignty ladder); the OKR card, with a fill-in template and the five tests every key result must pass; and the 90-day plan card, an action menu across announce, adopt and embed that you tick, own and date.
- The triple-impact scorecard — efficiency, social and environmental, every metric with an owner and a threshold.
- A Proven Path certificate of completion — PPA-AIT-001, issued after a 13-question knowledge check (9/13 to pass).
Agenda — 09h00 to 16h00
Six blocks, four hands-on exercises, one knowledge check. Every exercise produces a real artefact for your team. Lunch is BYO during the 40-minute break — V&A Waterfront cafés 5 minutes from the venue.
| Time | Block |
|---|---|
| 09h00 – 09h20 | Welcome + check-in — your role, one AI decision sitting on your desk, what you want to walk out with at 16h00 |
| 09h20 – 09h45 | Block 1 · Decide. What AI changes and what stays yours · the decision loop (Frame → Assist → Decide → Narrate → Measure) · the four human-agent risks to name before you fund |
| 09h45 – 10h10 | Block 1 · Cost. The five cost lines · cost-per-decision · kill criteria as a leadership habit · leading vs lagging indicators · right-sizing the model · the vendor price ladder |
| 10h10 – 10h25 | Short break |
| 10h25 – 11h35 | Block 2 · Exercise 1 — the board decision (70 min). Score the six Karoo bets, decide Fund / Pilot / Park / Kill — then cost the winners, write the kill criteria and set the exec scorecard. Defend your top three to a sceptical board. |
| 11h35 – 12h15 | Lunch break — BYO, 40 minutes (V&A Waterfront cafés) |
| 12h15 – 12h45 | Block 3 · Govern. The AI readiness assessment and the floor rule · your AI policy in seven clauses · oversight tiered to risk · the centre of excellence · sovereignty: own, rent or build · what POPIA and the EU AI Act already require |
| 12h45 – 13h30 | Exercise 2 · Your AI governance pack (45 min). Score readiness — Karoo's, then your own — draft the policy one-pager, shape the CoE against a real org chart, and make the sovereignty call with a 90-day exit test. |
| 13h30 – 13h55 | Block 4 · Align. How to write an OKR — objective vs key result, outcome vs output vs task, and the five tests every KR must pass · then the three moves: retire / refactor / add, plus the team-health and transition KRs nobody adds until something breaks |
| 13h55 – 14h20 | Exercise 3 · Write and reframe the OKRs (25 min). Take two of Karoo’s four: retire what AI made meaningless, refactor outputs into outcomes, add what a human-agent team needs — and run every KR you write through the five tests. |
| 14h20 – 14h35 | Short break |
| 14h35 – 14h50 | Block 5 · Lead the change. Three horizons (announce · adopt · embed), the adjustment dip at weeks 4–5, and the three sentences to write before you need them |
| 14h50 – 15h25 | Exercise 4 · Your 90-day plan (35 min). Karoo leaves the room. Your own rollout, your weekly comms calendar, your human-agent risk register — and the one sentence you say when the agent gets it wrong in public. |
| 15h25 – 15h35 | Block 6 · Measure. The triple-impact scorecard — efficiency, social, environmental · the maturity ladder · where to get help next |
| 15h35 – 15h55 | Final test — 13 questions, 20 min, 9/13 to pass |
| 15h55 – 16h00 | Reflection · survey · certificates |
One running case. Continuity from AI at Work and AI at Scale.
You play Mvelo Khoza, CEO of Karoo Logistics — three months on from AI at Scale. Sam Naidoo (now Operations Director) has shipped three production agents and is asking for budget to scale. Geoff plays the board — and occasionally the Operations Manager who feels threatened. Then Karoo leaves the room and the last exercises are about your own organisation.
The portfolio
Six AI initiatives on Sam's wish-list — weekly KPI digest, complaint triage, supplier-email digest, dynamic route optimiser, driver scoring & coaching, sales-call AI co-pilot. Each with a sponsor and a risk note. None costed yet.
The governance gap
Three agents in production and no policy, no named owners, no view of whether the organisation is even ready. The chair's last question at the board meeting: "Who governs this?" You'll answer it — first for Karoo, then for yourself.
The change
Four OKRs set in June, before the AI rollout. A team rumour mill running ahead of the decisions. A board meeting in 11 days asking for the plan. You'll write the 90-day rollout and the weekly comms grid.
From R2,500 TTC per seat. In-house on request.
≈ €175 / $175 per seat — indicative, divided at R20 = €1 / $1.
Public seat, or a private class for your team. Book early, pay less — the price rises as the date nears. In person at Workshop17, V&A Waterfront · Always live, never recorded.
Can’t make it in person? If a last-minute emergency stops you reaching the room, we can usually arrange for you to join that session online. Specific online delivery can also be arranged, but must be discussed first. Private classes for your team, at your offices or another location, can be arranged too — email info@proven-path-academy.com to discuss details.
Public seat
From R2,500 In-person · max 13 seats · always live · TTC early-commit price
- One full day of training (09h00–16h00)
- 40-minute BYO lunch break (lunch and refreshments not provided — cafés 5 minutes away)
- 22-page student exercise workbook + the editable Karoo data files
- Blank governance pack to complete for your own organisation
- Three A4 cards: reference, OKR template and 90-day plan
- 13-question knowledge check + PPA-AIT-001 certificate
- One follow-up leadership check-in (30 min, online) within 90 days
Private class
Quote on request your offices or another location — contact us
- Same one-day curriculum, run at your office or boardroom
- Pre-day call with the CEO / exec sponsor (45 min) — we swap Karoo for your actual portfolio & OKRs
- The four exercises run against your real initiatives, not Karoo's
- You leave with a drafted AI policy and readiness score for the actual organisation
- One follow-up exec retro (90 min, online) within 90 days
- Travel charged separately if outside Cape Town
International participants & non-Rand payments welcome — we'll send specific invoicing instructions on request.