Board AI governance fails quietly. Programmes get approved, dashboards turn green, and months later no one at the table can say who owns the decisions the system now makes. Dr Kate Barker’s AI governance keynotes and board sessions are built for exactly that moment: whether a board is asking the right questions, receiving the right information, and governing at the right altitude without slipping into the operational.
Her work is anchored in the Board AI Index, the five-level diagnostic of institutional AI readiness, decision accountability and oversight that runs from Reactive through Alert, Architecting and Owned to Integrated. As an AI expert for boards she advises chairs, committees and sovereign institutions directly, and she is ranked the world’s No.1 Chief Futurist with a TIME100 AI Impact Award. The sessions are delivered as mainstage keynotes, closed-door board briefings or full board retreats.
World Government Summit, Dubai · PIF Leadership Forum, Riyadh · The Economist Impact Summit · NEOM Leadership Summit
A short FAQ. For longer conversations, please write directly.
Boards look for speakers with genuine board-level advisory work. Dr Kate Barker advises chairs and boards on AI oversight, built the Board AI Index used to assess board AI readiness, and is ranked the world’s No.1 Chief Futurist.
Who owns each decision the system will shape, what information the board needs to oversee it, where accountability escalates when it fails, and which human judgements the organisation will deliberately keep. Dr Kate’s research finds 88% of boards cannot name a decision owner for their AI systems and 62% of directors lack the information to oversee them. Dr Kate’s board sessions work through all four.
A five-level diagnostic of a board’s AI readiness, decision accountability and strategic oversight, running from Reactive to Integrated, set out in Hidden Power and applied in board and sovereign engagements.
Twelve weeks minimum lead time. Eighty bookings a year. Every enquiry is read personally.