Odgers Interim Financial Services and Professional Services Practice hosted an evening event exploring the challenges that lie ahead as AI reshapes decision-making. This article first appeared here on the Odgers Interim website.
Senior leaders from financial and professional services joined us for a wide-ranging debate on how leadership and board governance must evolve as artificial intelligence reshapes organisational life. A key underlying question about the near future was, who will have a seat at the leadership table and how will they get there?
The event was facilitated by Tracey Groves, CEO of Intelligent Ethics, which advises Boards and senior leaders on governance, enterprise change and culture in the age of AI. It featured a panel of senior figures from across Financial Services and Professional Services.
Tracey set the scene with a word of caution. Arguably many current leadership models are no longer fit for the world they are meant to govern. Boards are being asked to oversee not just financial performance but resilience, cyber risk, culture, sustainability, and the responsible use of technology, while simultaneously executives face pressure to move faster and make high-stakes decisions under intense public scrutiny.
“The world that we now live in is looking, sounding and feeling very different,” said Tracey. “The pace is faster, scrutiny is harsh, risk more connected. It’s complex and unpredictable, and AI is reshaping not just what organisations are doing, but how leaders think, decide, and are held accountable.”
Boards, some feel, remain largely analogue in a digital world, often structured around excessive process, risk aversion, and a checkbox compliance culture that is increasingly inadequate. There is a danger of governance built around process and review rather than good judgement; and that the relationship between Boards and executives remains distant and too adversarial.
There was consensus that AI is already changing leadership, but the panel urged caution about mistaking speed for wisdom. One panellist noted that AI is currently being used primarily as an efficiency tool, for example to draft emails and summarise information, but that much of its strategic potential remains untapped. The risk is that faster decision-making is being conflated with better decision-making.
The more powerful model, the panel suggested, is AI as a “thought partner” used to interrogate, challenge, and stress-test human thinking rather than replace it. Tracey described a recent presentation from a client who conducted research around how AI can improve the integrity of decision making, which she challenged. What was interesting, she noted, was the critical human dimension of questioning where the data came from, and vigilance towards potential biases and blind spots. The parallel and the congruent pairing of both human and machine, through a series of human prompts, “elevated the outcome from solely AI to something remarkably different to what it first came up with, which was a much better, stronger solution.”
Scenario planning in insurance offers a practical example where AI already enables Boards to run far more extensive risk analyses without overburdening executive teams. Yet Boards, can be too defensive, adopting a mindset which hamstrings executives in making bold decisions. Al can shorten the distance between Boards and executives, providing information so that they not only challenge but give support and have more time and energy to spend building trust with executives. “Trust but verify is always my motto,” said one of our panellists.
Asked what one human quality must be protected above all others as AI becomes more powerful, the panel settled on a cluster of interconnected values: moral courage, kindness, critical thinking, empathy, and authentic human connection. A question from the audience about junior talent highlighted a genuine concern. The traditional career path of learning through “grunt work” and accumulating experience over 15-20 years is being disrupted before organisations have developed alternatives. In the legal sector, for instance, nobody yet knows what training for junior professionals should look like.
Succession planning for roles that will no longer exist is wasted effort. Organisations must instead invest in cultivating curiosity, agility, and comfort with ambiguity from the outset.
The event ended on an optimistic tone. The skills needed for an uncertain future are deeply human: adaptability, curiosity, ethical judgement, the ability to connect and inspire.