Board Briefings and Executive Sessions
Ross Dawson briefs boards and executive teams on the forces reshaping their industries and organizations, and facilitates the discussion that turns a briefing into decisions. Directors and executives leave with a shared frame for the change ahead and clarity on the questions that matter for their organization.
Board directors need a different kind of input from executives. Their time is short, their accountability is broad, and the value of a session lies in how well it frames the decisions in front of them. Ross has worked with the boards of large corporations, mutuals, member organizations, and government bodies, and tailors each briefing to the board’s context and agenda.
Most briefings combine a compact presentation with facilitated discussion. Where a board or executive team wants to go further, a briefing becomes a half-day or full-day workshop with specific outputs.
Sessions
The sessions below are illustrative examples. Every engagement is designed around the organization’s situation and the decisions it faces.
Designing the Future of Work
The forces reshaping work, from AI to talent and organization design, ending in a shared vision of the organization’s 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: the automate, augment, and architect choices, governance that enables transformation, and the leadership role. 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
Innovation Strategy for Boards
How boards balance their duty to manage risk with the imperative of continual renewal: framing industry disruption, governance for innovation, and the major innovation decisions. Discover more
Futures and industry briefings
Structured future thinking applied to the board’s own industry: driving forces and critical uncertainties, technology trajectories, global dynamics, demographic and generational shifts, and the responses open to the organization. These briefings often open a strategy day or frame the year’s strategic agenda.
How a briefing runs
- Briefing conversation. A call with the chair, CEO, or company secretary on the board’s context, its current strategic questions, and what a successful session looks like.
- Design. Content selected and framed for the organization’s sector and situation, with pre-reading where the board wants it.
- The session. Typically 60 to 90 minutes within a board meeting or strategy day, or one to two hours for an executive team: a focused presentation, then facilitated discussion and Q&A, or a longer workshop with defined outputs.
- Follow-through. A summary of the issues and questions raised, and where useful a further session with the executive team to take them forward.
Formats
- Board briefing. 60 to 90 minutes within a board meeting or strategy day, discussion throughout.
- Executive session. One to two hours combining presentation, discussion and Q&A.
- Board or executive workshop. Half day to full day, participatory, producing aligned positions, priorities, or action plans.
- Non-executive director programs. Sessions for groups of directors convened by professional firms, institutes, or associations.
- In person or virtual. Virtual sessions use digital facilitation tools designed for the format.
Examples of recent work
The board of a mining services group wanted to strengthen how it thinks about the long-term future. Ross ran a session on framing the future, from structured future thinking (driving forces, critical uncertainties, S-curves, backcasting) through global dynamics and technology trajectories to work and automation, with discussion on the implications for the group’s strategy.
The board of a mutual insurer serving professionals asked for a future perspectives session ahead of its strategy work. Ross took the board through the macro trends and their implications for the mutual’s members and market: demographics, the changing profile of professionals, the future of work, platforms and ecosystems, and the knowledge-based relationships at the heart of its model.
The board of a not-for-profit health fund wanted to think about strategy innovation in an accelerating world. Ross’s session covered acceleration in technology and consumer uptake, platforms and ecosystem value creation, executive cognition amid information overload, and the emerging roles of Humans + AI, each with discussion on what it meant for the fund.
The board of a diversified financial institution with over US$200 billion in assets under management asked Ross to run a session on disruption in financial services. His presentation covered the developments most relevant to the institution and was followed by extended Q&A and discussion among the directors.
About Ross Dawson
Ross Dawson is a futurist, strategy advisor, keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and author. He is the Founder of Advanced Human Technologies Group, whose ventures include the Humans + AI product suite and Fraxios, the AI-augmented strategy platform, and the bestselling author of Thriving on Overload and Living Networks. He has delivered keynotes and strategy sessions in 35 countries.
