Strategy and business model
How AI changes what you sell, and what it costs you to deliver it.
AI Sherpa for CEOs and executives
You lead the climb. I know the route.
One-to-one guidance for CEOs and executives leading their organisations through AI, built on H-AI-brid Leadership and the five steps of the ROUTE Method.
The view from the top has changed
Your people already use AI but your organisation has not changed because of it.
That gap is a leadership problem that sits with you. Nobody one layer down can close it for you.
- The board wants results from AI, and asks when they will show in the numbers.
- Experiments are running in every function, and nobody can say which ones matter.
- Vendors promise transformation and deliver licences.
- The business model itself is moving, and the old answers do not hold.
The role
Not a coach. Not a consultant. An AI Sherpa.
A coach asks you questions. A consultant hands you a report. A sherpa goes up the mountain with you. He knows the route and reads the conditions. The summit stays yours.
I know the route
More than 500 CEOs and senior leaders, across Europe, the Gulf and Australia, working through the same climb you are on.
I read the conditions
What is real in the technology this quarter, what is noise, and what it means for your business. Explained in plain language.
You lead the climb
You set the agenda, you make the decisions, you keep the credit. I am independent, and nothing you say leaves the room.
The lens
H-AI-brid Leadership
AI (GenAI and Agentic AI) is not just a tool. It arrives as a new kind of team member, and that changes what leadership has to do.
H-AI-brid Leadership asks three questions: what this means for you as a leader, what it means for your teams when people and AI work side by side, and what it means for how the organisation is run, governed and paid for. It is the subject of my forthcoming book, and it is what the work below is built on.
The method
The ROUTE method
Five steps. We rarely walk them in order, but by the end we have covered all of them.
Reality
Where does the organisation actually stand with AI - in an honest assessment?
Ownership
Who decides, who checks, and who is accountable when AI gets it wrong?
Uptake
Where is the gap between what is promised and what your people experience?
Traction
Which one piece of work do we redesign first, and what does that unlock?
Evidence
What proves it is working, and will it convince the people you report to?
Six months in, the picture is different. You can say in one sentence where the organisation stands with AI and what it is worth. Responsibility for AI decisions sits with named people. Real work has been redesigned around people and AI together, and you can show what it changed. And when the board asks when AI will show in the numbers, you have an answer and the evidence behind it.
What we work on
Six territories. Your agenda decides which ones we spend time in.
Organisation and roles
What changes when work is redesigned around people and AI together.
Governance and responsible AI
What you must be able to answer for, and to whom.
Big bets and everyday use
Where the real return sits, and which flagship projects to stop.
The technology, in plain language
Enough to ask the right questions and judge the answers.
Your own leadership
How you lead, decide and hold your nerve while the ground moves.
How I work
Ways to work together
Two ways to work together.
The main route
One to one with the CEO
- A session every two weeks, online. Three months is the minimum, six months is where the work really lands.
- We start with a short assessment of where you and your organisation stand, and finish with a strategic outlook you can take to your board.
- Between sessions you get briefings on what is moving, and a direct line for the questions that will not wait.
You set the subject each time. Whatever is urgent will be addressed.
By invitation
Your top team
- By invitation, after we have worked together.
- Individual sessions with each executive, plus private group sessions where the team works on the same questions at the same time.
I work with a small number of executives at any one time, so there are usually one or two places open. If the timing matters to you, say so in your message.
Setting out
How it begins
A private conversation.
Thirty minutes. You describe where you are. If I am not the right person, I will say so and point you somewhere better.
Setting the route.
A short assessment of where you and your organisation stand, and what the months ahead should cover.
The climb.
Sessions every two weeks, with briefings in between. Your direct line for whatever cannot wait.
Taking stock.
We look at what moved, and at what you take to your board.
CEO, European technology company, 500 plus people
From the field
He came with a cost problem: AI spend rising by about a fifth every month, against a business model that bills clients by headcount. The real question underneath was who should carry that cost, and what the company is paid for when AI does a growing share of the work.
Over our sessions we worked through the economics, the governance and the conversation he needed to have with his group. One of the results was a significant shift in how the business understood the relevance of token costs, and a revamp of the model built on that.
Quote and client name withheld at the client's request.
AI Sherpa
About me
I am Michael Alf. I have spent thirty years where people, technology and leadership meet: leading a platoon of about thirty vehicles and their crews early on, later running a portfolio of some sixty projects as the PMO, twelve years at Capgemini as a VP in various leadership roles, and today my own AI companies.
That last part matters. I build with these tools myself, which keeps the conversation practical and lets me tell you what a demo is actually showing you.
Along the way I have trained more than 500 CEOs and senior leaders face to face, across Europe, the Gulf and Australia plus thousands virtually.
- 500+ CEOs and senior leaders trained
- Europe, the Gulf, Australia
- Independent of any vendor
- Nova SBE and Emeritus programmes
- Certified High Performance Coach
- Author, H-AI-brid Leadership (forthcoming)
Before we talk
Is this for you?
The CEOs I work with have one thing in common. They answer for what AI does to the business, while the technology itself sits with other people. If that is your position, you are in the right place.
This works when you are
- A CEO, owner or executive-team member in an organisation of roughly 300 to 5,000 people
- Accountable for AI results, whether or not AI is formally yours
- Past the pilot stage and unsure what to do with what you have learned
- Willing to think out loud with someone who has no product to sell you
This is not for you if you want
- A training programme for your organisation. I do those, but not here.
- Someone to implement a tool, select a vendor or run your IT project.
- A framework delivered as a slide deck, with no intention of changing anything.
Questions
Questions executives ask
The first step
Request a private conversation
Thirty minutes, in confidence, and you are under no obligation afterwards. Tell me where you are and what is on your mind. This comes to me directly, and I reply within two working days.
- Entirely confidential. What you say stays between us.
- A conversation, and a proposal only if you ask for one.
- English or German, whichever you prefer.
The route is clearer with someone who has walked it.
The climb is yours either way. Better to do it with a map.