Independent board advisory
Can your board answer three questions about AI?
Where it is being used. Who is accountable. Whether you can show it is under control. We help boards and executive teams answer all three, with evidence behind each answer.
Governance advice and education. Not legal advice, audit or certification.
The questions that matter
Four questions to put to your next board meeting.
If the answers come readily, you are in better shape than most. If they do not, that is the work.
Do you know where AI is being used in your organisation?
Staff use public AI tools every day, often with customer, financial or board information. Most organisations have no inventory. The board needs an answer before someone else asks for one.
Do you have evidence that it is under control?
A policy on a shared drive is not evidence. Evidence is an inventory, named accountability, assessed suppliers and a board paper showing the board turned its mind to the question.
Is your approach proportionate to your size?
Enterprise AI programs are built for enterprise budgets. A smaller organisation needs something lighter that still holds up when a regulator, insurer or major client looks at it.
Would your directors give the same answers?
Boards are often further apart on AI than they realise. Measuring that gap is usually the fastest way to turn a vague concern into a decision the board can actually make.
How we help
Measure. Prioritise. Sustain.
No discovery phase and no transformation program. Three steps, in order.
Establish where you stand
A structured assessment across your board and management. You receive a maturity score by category, the gaps that carry the most risk, and a clear view of your current exposure.
Agree what matters most
Findings written in board language, each traced to the standard, regulation or duty behind it. A prioritised plan across 30 days, 90 days and 12 months, with named owners and board agenda items.
Keep it current
Governance is continuous. Actions tracked to completion, evidence gathered as you go, regulatory change monitored, and periodic reassessment so the board can see the trend rather than take it on trust.
Who we work with
Organisations that carry the same duties without the same budget.
The large firms do excellent work at enterprise scale. This practice exists for everyone below that line.
Boards and directors
You need to discharge your duties on a technology you did not grow up with, and to know which questions to put to management and what a good answer sounds like.
Executive teams
You are adopting AI because it works. You need the guardrails to catch up without stalling the business or buying a program built for an organisation ten times your size.
Company secretaries
You need AI on the agenda properly. A standing item, a risk described in terms the board can act on, minutes that stand up, and evidence on file.
Advisers and intermediaries
Your clients are asking about AI governance and it sits alongside your advice rather than inside it. We work white-label or alongside you, and refer legal questions straight back.
Our engagement
Three ways to work together.
Most boards begin with a briefing and decide from there.
Start here
Board briefing
A single session that brings the whole board to a shared understanding of what AI means for directors, with a live measurement of where your directors believe you stand.
The core engagement
Governance assessment and roadmap
A full assessment of your position, scored by category, with every recommendation traced back to the instrument that motivates it.
Stay in control
Ongoing support
The part most organisations skip. Continuing advice between board meetings so that a report becomes progress rather than a document.
Common questions
What boards ask before they call.
Is this legal advice?
No. We are not lawyers and nothing we provide is legal advice, a compliance determination or a certification. We help boards understand and improve their governance position. Where a question needs a legal opinion, we will say so and recommend you obtain one.
Is this proportionate for a smaller organisation?
It should be, and we will tell you if it is not. For a smaller organisation the right answer is usually a short inventory, one policy people actually follow, named accountability and a standing board item. That is a very different piece of work from a full management system implementation, and it is scoped differently.
How is this different from a large firm?
You get the senior adviser in the room rather than a delivery team. The scope is defined before we begin. And we do not sell the implementation afterwards, so there is no commercial reason to find more work than you have.
Where do your recommendations come from?
Each finding links to the instrument behind it, and the report tells you which kind it is: a legal obligation, a regulator expectation, a recognised standard, or an internal governance choice. Those four are different things, and boards deserve to see which is which.
Can you work through our existing adviser?
Yes. A good share of this work comes through lawyers, accountants, governance consultants and company secretaries who want the AI governance element handled without taking it on themselves. We are glad to work white-label or alongside you.
How do we start?
With a short conversation. Tell us what prompted the question and we will give you an honest view of whether you need help and what shape it should take. The pulse check is free if you would rather measure something first.
Start with a conversation.
Twenty minutes, at no cost. Tell us what prompted the question and we will give you an honest view of whether you need help, and what shape it should take. If the answer is that you are in reasonable shape, we will say so.