17%
of boards take direct responsibility for AI governance oversight.
McKinsey, State of AI, 202501 / 12Engage Ivan RocheExecutive Governance
The gap between AI capability and executive governance.
I speak, write, facilitate and sit on boards on one subject: how an executive shows, on the record, that a decision about AI or emerging technology was reasonable when it was made.
If it can't explain itself to a board, it shouldn't be trusted by one.
For programme chairs, conference producers, editors, board chairs, company secretaries and learning and development leads.
02 / 12Why your audience needs thisExecutive Governance
Your audience is already being asked to own decisions it cannot yet explain.
Most AI talks explain the technology. Most governance talks explain the regulation. Few connect the two at the level where a director, a senior manager or an audit chair actually answers for the outcome.
75%
of organisations have not fully implemented an AI governance programme.
AuditBoard and IAPP, 20253×
rise in boards citing AI risk as an oversight responsibility in a year.
EY Center for Board Matters, 2025Figures as published by each source. Survey results describe the sample surveyed.
03 / 12Who is speakingHuman Observability
A practitioner who has operated the systems he now advises boards on.
Twenty-five years as CTO, COO and interim CDO across insurance, aviation, financial services and telecoms, including Virgin Atlantic. Trained in astrophysics at Queen’s University Belfast, which is where I learned to extract signal from noise under uncertainty.
25+
years in senior technology leadership
50+
expert network engagements for investors and law firms
4
published books on AI leadership and innovation history
27
issues of The Roche Review on board accountability and AI risk
Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (FRSS) and Secretary of its Northern Ireland Local Group. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Member of the Institute of Physics. Doctorate, Queen’s University Belfast. Founder, Otopoetic Limited.
04 / 12Four ways to engageAll four pillars
One argument, delivered in the format your audience needs.
02
Write
Guest articles, columns and rapid commentary on regulatory and technology events.
See the formats04
Serve
Non-executive and advisory seats, steering groups, expert calls and fractional leadership.
See the roles05 / 12SpeakingExecutive Governance
Five talks, each built around a question the audience can take back to its own board.
If It Can’t Explain Itself to a Board
AI governance for non-technical directors: what a regulator, litigant or shareholder will ask, and why documentation of intent does not answer it.
Keynote · 30 to 45 minutes
The Record, Not the Forecast
Board accountability for quantum and other decisions under uncertainty. Directors are tested on what they recorded, not on what they predicted.
Keynote or board session
Two Kinds of Dates
How to verify what an AI vendor tells you. A claim and a record are not the same event, and most boards have no clock for the second.
Keynote or panel
The Regulator Is Automating. Is Your Evidence?
For financial services: the Senior Managers regime, the EU AI Act and what a named individual must be able to produce.
Sector forum · 30 minutes
Belfast: Ageless Innovation
From Linenopolis to tech hub: what a city’s history of reinvention teaches organisations facing the next technology shift.
Regional, civic and university audiences
Your topic, my argument
Tailored sessions for a specific sector, regulator briefing or board cycle. Tell me the decision your audience faces.
Scoped per event
Delivery experience includes consultancy, training, conference speaking and facilitation in the Middle East, regularly each year from 2001 to 2014, for mixed-culture audiences. Formats: keynote, panel, fireside, workshop, chair or moderator. Fees are scoped per event.
06 / 12WritingHuman Observability
Assertion first, evidence behind it, written for people who sign things.
I write for boards, not for engineers. Each piece makes one argument, names the regulatory or institutional source behind it and ends on a question the reader can take into the next meeting.
Guest article
800 to 1,500 words on AI governance, board accountability or quantum-era decisions, written for your readership.
Column or series
A recurring slot built around a board question each issue. The Roche Review runs on this model.
Rapid commentary
A considered view on a regulatory event, vendor claim or published report while it is still news.
Foreword, review or panel paper
Independent assessment of a report or a framework from a practitioner and a statistician’s standpoint.
Current outlets: The Roche Review (27 issues) and the Quantum Foresight newsletter on LinkedIn. Four published books. Enquiries answered within two working days.
07 / 12FacilitationAdaptive Architecture · Human Observability
Working sessions that end with a record the board can defend.
The decision-record session
Ninety minutes on one live AI or quantum decision. The board minutes its assumptions, evidence base, alternatives considered and review triggers, and leaves with the record.
Board or committee · 90 minutesThe governance position workshop
The leadership team locates its position across five independent governance dimensions and leaves with a ranked list of the gaps that carry the most regulatory and fiduciary risk.
Executive team · half dayThe foresight session
Map the plausible futures for quantum or AI regulation, set the dates that would reopen each decision, and translate both into language the board can act on.
Leadership team · half dayThe regulator’s question
A tabletop exercise. A material AI decision is challenged and the group must produce the account a regulator would ask for, against the clock.
Risk, legal and technology · two to three hoursAlso available as conference session chair, panel moderator and facilitator of regional and sector roundtables. Scoped to your audience and delivered in person or online.
08 / 12Boards and advisoryExecutive Governance
Standing challenge for boards that want the question asked before a regulator asks it.
Non-executive director
Governance-focused NED mandates, including technology-led and PE-backed companies. Currently serving Unclocks Technologies and NeuraBloom.
Advisory and steering groups
Steering group member, Matrix NI quantum study. Focus group member, Reed innovation group. Secretary, RSS Northern Ireland Local Group.
Fractional CTO, CIO or CDO
Operational leadership for regulated-sector businesses that need it without a permanent appointment. Begins with a 30-day diagnostic.
Expert calls and opinion
GLG and Guidepoint engagements for investors and law firms: structured interviews, written opinions and advisory calls.
Due diligence
Technical and AI governance scrutiny before capital is committed, through Otopoetic.
Governance advisory
Diagnosis, accountability design and verification for organisations, delivered through Otopoetic.
09 / 12Recent proofAdaptive Architecture · Executive Governance
Named to the steering group of a study the Economy Minister launched on 23 September.
The Matrix NI study, Quantum Technologies in Northern Ireland, was prepared by SAMI Consulting for the Department for the Economy and launched at AICON 2026, part of Belfast Tech Week. It names post-quantum cryptography and quantum-secure migration the clearest near-term commercial opportunity.
What the study leaves open
Its governance content centres on export controls, dual-use compliance and regulatory alignment, alongside a call for human accountability and decision reconstructability. How a director shows a quantum decision was reasonable when it was made is where my work sits.
What I bring to your audience
A way to turn the NCSC milestones of 2028, 2031 and 2035 into minuted review triggers, with the assumptions, evidence and alternatives behind each decision on the record.
Read the Department for the Economy announcement and the full report. Steering group membership is not authorship of the report.
10 / 12Where I sitExecutive Governance
Most speakers and commentators in this field start from the technology. I start from the board.
| Typical voice | What they offer well | What I add |
|---|---|---|
| Technology futurists | Energy, trend narrative, inspiration | An operating record as CTO, COO and CDO, and regulatory specifics a board can act on |
| Vendor-affiliated thought leaders | Product depth and customer stories | Independence from software sales, so the advice does not end in a platform |
| Large-firm partners and analysts | Breadth, data and enterprise reach | One accountable voice, available directly, with no sales handoff |
| Academic and policy commentators | Depth, rigour and long horizons | A practitioner’s view of what a named director must be able to produce |
| Director education bodies | Board vocabulary and standards | An evidential method applied to a live AI or quantum decision |
Our reading of public positioning by category, reviewed October 2026. Categories, not named individuals: many speakers cross these lines.
11 / 12Recent workHuman Observability
Recent writing, so you can judge the voice before you book it.
The Roche Review · 4 October 2026
The Proof Was Announced in Hours. The Verification Takes Years.
Quantum Foresight · 30 September 2026
When the Timeline Moves: Board Accountability in the Quantum Era
Why the record of reasoning, not the forecast, is what gets tested.
The Roche Review · 27 September 2026
The Breach Took a Day. The Notification Took Three Months.
12 / 12Next stepExecutive Governance
Tell me the room, the date and the decision your audience faces.
Every engagement begins with a no-obligation conversation. I respond within two working days.