Strategy Advisor
Ross Dawson works as a strategy advisor and board advisor to organizations that are aiming to keep ahead of accelerating change. He helps boards and executive teams frame the shape, impact, and opportunities from technology and industry transformation, and make the decisions that will create their future.
Ross has delivered keynotes and strategy sessions for business and government leaders in 35 countries, with clients including BCG, Deloitte, Google, NASA, Public Investment Fund, Toyota, UAE Prime Minister’s Office and Visa (see clients). He is the Founder of Advanced Human Technologies Group, whose ventures include the Humans + AI product suite and Fraxios, the AI-augmented strategy platform. He is the bestselling author of Thriving on Overload and Living Networks.
What distinguishes his advisory work is that he builds what he advises on. Ross founded and leads ventures in AI-augmented strategy, collective intelligence, and Humans + AI organizational design. The frameworks he brings into a boardroom come from putting these ideas to work, not from observing at a distance.
Clients often remark on the combination of thought leadership with facilitation. Ross draws out the perspectives in a room, including the ones that differ, and shapes them into shared insight and clear priorities. Where it helps, he uses digital and AI tools in the session itself, so a board or executive team experiences Humans + AI thinking rather than hearing about it.
Three ways Ross works with boards and executive teams
Board and executive briefings
Focused sessions that give directors and senior executives a working understanding of AI and emerging technologies, their impact on the industry and the organization, and the strategic and governance questions they raise. Board briefings
Strategy facilitation and offsites
Strategic planning workshops, executive and partner offsites, scenario planning, and C-suite roundtables, designed around the client’s objectives and run to produce alignment and action plans rather than another set of slides. Strategy facilitation
Executive education and leadership development
Programs that build the capabilities senior and rising leaders need to lead through accelerating change: foresight, adaptive leadership, AI-augmented thinking, and mastery of information. Executive education
Executive sessions and programs
Every engagement, including topic and format, is tailored to the client’s objectives and context. The sessions and programs below are illustrative examples of his work, which is always tailored to the client’s objectives.
Board and executive sessions: work, organizations, AI
Designing the Future of Work
A session on the forces reshaping work, from AI to talent and organization design, that gives the leadership team a shared vision of its future of work and the initiatives to create it. Discover more
Building Humans + AI Organizations
How to design organizations where human and AI capability compound, spanning structures, workflows, governance, and culture. Discover more
AI Strategy Sessions for Boards and Executive Teams
Board briefings and executive workshops on AI strategy, governance, and organizational transformation, from a first framing of AI’s role to a working AI roadmap. Discover more
Strategy facilitation
Framing Your AI Strategy
A facilitated session applying strategic frameworks to clarify the organization’s positioning relative to AI, surface the priority issues, and set a high-level roadmap. Discover more
AI-Augmented Strategic Decision-Making
Leading-edge AI tools and techniques applied to a live strategic decision, giving participants a faster, better-supported outcome and the ability to apply AI to future decisions. Discover more
Executive education and leadership development
Future-Focused Leadership
Strategic foresight for senior leaders: external trends, scenario thinking, foresight tools, and personal action plans. Discover more
Leadership for Accelerating Change
Leading organizations and people at the pace of their environment: adaptability, experimentation, governance for transformation, and Humans + AI leadership. Discover more
AI-Augmented Thinking and Decision-Making
Personal and team practices for amplifying thinking, problem-solving and decisions with AI. Discover more
Thriving on Overload: Information Mastery
The author of Thriving on Overload guides executives through the information habits that support superior performance and wellbeing in fast-paced environments. Discover more
Engagement formats
Every engagement is designed around the client’s objectives, and most take one of these forms.
- Board briefing. A focused session within a board meeting or strategy day, typically 60 to 90 minutes, with discussion throughout.
- Executive session. One to two hours combining presentation, discussion and Q&A for an executive team or leadership group.
- Half-day or full-day workshop. Participatory and hands-on, producing specific outputs such as prioritized use cases, aligned positions or action plans.
- Strategy offsite. Design and facilitation of executive or partner offsites, from a keynote followed by structured discussion through to a multi-day strategy process ending in agreed initiatives.
- Cohort program. Education sessions extended into multi-session live programs for leadership groups.
- Ongoing advisory. A senior strategy or project advisory role alongside internal teams, including scenario planning and long-term strategy work.
Groups range from boards and executive teams of six to ten people to leadership programs of several hundred. Sessions run in person or virtually. Ross has delivered board and executive sessions across Australia, the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Each engagement starts with a briefing conversation on the organization’s context, the decisions in front of the leadership team, and what a successful session would produce. Ross designs the content and format from there.
Fraxios strategy platform
Ross is Founder of Fraxios, the AI-augmented strategy platform for executives, board directors and strategy teams. Fraxios turns strategy from a periodic exercise into a continuous, living practice, helping leadership teams define their strategy architecture, explore options, understand implications, resolve issues and synthesize insights while monitoring signals in their environment. It grew directly out of Ross’s strategy work with business leaders in 35 countries. In AI-Augmented Strategic Decision-Making sessions, participants work with these capabilities on their own strategic questions.
Illustrative strategy architecture built from public information.
Examples of recent work
The board of a major insurance company wanted to understand how AI should change the way it makes strategic decisions. Ross ran a session that took directors through the implications for board and executive strategy processes, showed how AI-augmented decision-making could apply at every level of the organization, and worked through examples on decisions currently in front of the board.
A major mining company needed its board aligned on the role of AI in its strategy. Ross facilitated a workshop that introduced strategic frameworks spanning operations through to managerial and executive roles, governance for transformation, and workforce implications, setting the frame for the company’s workforce and technology strategies.
The leadership team of a major US financial advisory group set out to design the future of work for their organization, covering both the role of AI and the evolution of hybrid work. Across a series of workshops Ross built common frameworks and language, guided the team to a clear vision for its future workforce, and shaped short, medium and long-term initiatives.
A global marketing conglomerate brought its top leaders to New York for a four-day program on future opportunity. Ross led the opening half-day, introducing the core concepts of strategic foresight, exploring the macro trends and uncertainties facing the group, and running a scenario planning exercise against the leaders’ current challenges.
About Ross Dawson
Ross Dawson is a futurist, strategy advisor, keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and author. He is Founding Chairman of Advanced Human Technologies Group, spanning professional services, publishing and software, and Founder of Fraxios and Humans + AI. He previously worked across three continents for NCR, Merrill Lynch and Thomson Financial, most recently as Global Director, Capital Markets.
His five books include Thriving on Overload, named among the best technology books of the year by Fast Company, and Living Networks, recognized by the New York Times for its prescience. He founded the Humans + AI Explorers community and hosts the Humans + AI podcast. His work has been covered by ABC News, the BBC, Forbes, The Guardian, the New York Times and Time. More about Ross
Frequently asked questions
How is a board briefing different from a keynote?
A keynote is designed for a large audience and runs as a presentation. A board briefing is built for a specific board and its agenda, runs as a conversation with discussion throughout, and is designed to inform decisions the board is facing.
How much preparation is involved?
Every engagement starts with a briefing conversation and, for workshops, a short design phase. Ross tailors content to the organization’s industry, strategic context and the questions in front of the leadership team.
Can sessions be run virtually?
Yes. Board briefings, executive sessions and facilitated workshops are all run virtually as well as in person, using digital facilitation tools where they add value.
What sizes of group does Ross work with?
From boards and executive teams of six to ten people through to leadership programs of several hundred.
Discuss your requirements
Ross works with a small number of boards and executive teams each year. To discuss a board briefing, strategy session or leadership program, contact Ross’s office.
