Event synopsis

Only 12% of managers feel "very confident" supporting their team's AI adoption. Just 13% of senior leaders report actively experimenting with AI, even though 64% encourage others to do so. Leading AI adoption without first assessing your own approach is not simply a leadership gap; it is a significant oversight. This workshop helps to address that issue.

About the workshop

Unlike previous change fatigue, AI adoption has no clear endpoint. Leaders are now expected to guide teams in real time, often without full control over outcomes or authority over key decisions related to data, governance, and accountability.

This session focuses on a key principle: effective AI leadership begins with personal reflection. Manisha Mistry and Jennifer Gervès-Keen will start with a live simulation of an AI adoption scenario. Participants will assess their own readiness, develop tools to determine which decisions should remain human-led, and explore how followership can drive influence, even without formal authority.

Research shows that organisations successful with AI are twelve times more likely to have leaders who are personally and actively engaged, rather than distant sponsors. Self-awareness, more than experience or confidence, is the strongest predictor of executive success.

This workshop builds self-awareness and provides practical tools to act on it.

You will leave with a personal playbook developed during the session and a practical followership strategy to implement with your team. This approach encourages collaborative adoption, leveraging your team's existing insights.

Key Takeaways:

• A clear assessment of your current position in AI adoption, and how it is influencing your professional presence

• Practical tools to navigate ambiguity, identifying which tasks require human input and which can be delegated

• A structured followership approach to access and leverage your team’s existing insights

• A personalised playbook, developed during the session, ready for immediate implementation

• A clearer understanding of your readiness to recognise and act on your team’s existing knowledge

• Opportunities to connect with other transformation leaders at a similar stage of AI maturity

Many organisations then run this exercise inside their own business, with their own teams. If that would be useful, talk to us on the day.

Expert speakers

Manisha Mistry

Inclusive AI Culture & Underrepresented Talent in Tech

Manisha Mistry is Co-Founder of Cerestrial LLP, where she leads on building inclusive AI and digital culture teams and coaching underrepresented talent into technology careers. Her work spans leading transformation in traditional and regulated industries, digital culture change at scale, and the commercial case for diversity in AI teams. Comfortable with audiences from 6 to 250 people, Manisha is a strong advocate for interactive, two-way sessions and has spoken across engineering, technology, pharma and professional services, bringing both a strategic and lived-experience lens to inclusion in AI.

Jennifer Gervès-Keen

Award-winning Master executive coach, facilitator and speaker

Jennifer Gervès-Keen is a Cerestrial Partner, award-winning Master executive coach, facilitator and speaker based on the West Coast of Canada. Known for her direct, honest approach, humour, and energy, Jen is considered one of Canada's top learning and development designers in coaching and leadership. Certified in Neurodiversity, Inclusion, and Change Management, she is currently completing her PhD in Social Change through Workplace Learning. A published author of Show Up Like A Coach, her second book, Show Up Like a Leader, is now available. Jen has recently presented at the International Adult Education Conference in Toronto and the Columbia University Coaching Conference in New York.