Boards govern what they are given. Give them something worth governing. Paul Sala | Co-Founder, Ibex Ascent | May 2026 AI conversations are happening everywhere in most large organisations right now, and that is part of the problem. Technology teams are raising legitimate concerns about cyber risk, data readiness, infrastructure cost, and change fatigue. Business operations leaders are working through what an AI-affected operating model means for their people and pr

When the AI team says you have a data problem, here's how to hear it as an opportunity rather than a crisis Paul Sala | Co-Founder, Ibex Ascent | May 2026 | 8 min read Every serious AI conversation eventually becomes a data conversation. That is usually the moment the room gets quiet. Executives know what is sitting underneath the surface. Duplicated records. Inconsistent definitions. Ageing platforms. Unofficial spreadsheets that somehow became the source of trut

Commitment Is Not Consensus: A Practical Guide for EA and TMO Teams Eighteen months into a major global programme, the home region is live and performing well. The steering pack is green. The programme director is confident. Elsewhere, the picture is different. One region is slow to adopt because the implementation did not account for local operating constraints that differ significantly from the original design. Another region has thin engagement. Regional leaders are attend

How to use AI without losing your most important asset: employee talent. By Paul Sala, Co-Founder, Ibex Ascent | ibexascent.com Your employees already know AI is coming. They can see the headlines. They can hear the boardroom language: productivity, efficiency, automation, higher-value work. They have heard those words before and they know they do not always end in a better working day. So when leaders announce an AI programme with too much excitement and not enough honesty,

The short version: enterprise AI is moving from assisting people to acting on their behalf. Most transformation teams are not built for that shift. The ones that fail to adapt will deliver technology that the business cannot safely absorb. The platform direction is clear SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Workday. Different products, different language, same direction. Every major enterprise platform is moving from systems that record, route and report work towar

A mature IT organisation can still have an immature planning model. That was the uncomfortable truth. This was not a failing IT organisation. Far from it. We had been managing shared services for several years. We had consolidated data centres into central computing hubs for the company. We had a robust cybersecurity organisation protecting data assets across the enterprise. We had a scaled global network solution spanning regions, sites, and business operations. We had techn

Transformation leads must lean in with a new perspective on functional alignment, ownership, delivery rhythm, risk management and value capture. Executive summary Agentic AI is at risk of being underframed. That may sound strange, given the volume of noise around it. Every vendor deck now seems to include agents. Every conference keynote has a slide about digital labour. Every leadership team is somewhere between curious, pressured and slightly worried that they are already b

Why CEOs Need a Better Business Case Before Funding the Hype Executive summary AI is no longer a technology conversation. It is a CEO-level business decision. The pressure is coming from every direction. CTOs and development teams see huge opportunity and want investment. Business leaders are asking why competitors appear to be moving faster. Vendors are promising productivity, automation, and intelligence at scale. Meanwhile, CIOs are often the ones urging caution because th

Bottom line: Transformation value is now created across functions, but accountability is often still assigned as if one heroic leader can carry the outcome alone. Shared accountability only works when ownership, decision rights, and outcome measures are deliberately designed. Most transformation programmes do not fail because leaders lack ambition. They fail because accountability is designed around the wrong unit of work. Executive summary Most transformation programmes do

Traditional governance keeps organisations safe. Transformation governance has to help them move. By Paul Sala, Ibex Ascent Ltd. Climbers move from gatekeepers to guides on a mountain ridge, representing guided momentum in transformation governance Executive summary Bottom line: transformation programmes rarely fail because the ambition was wrong. They fail because the organisation lacks a strong enough mechanism to turn ambition into sustained execution. Most companies alrea

A practical playbook for setting the direction, choosing the leaders, building the roadmap, and protecting the value. By Paul Sala, Ibex Ascent Ltd. Based on practical experience supported by research from Bain, McKinsey, BCG, and Deloitte on digital and large-scale transformation programmes. A mountaineer climbing a high ridge at sunrise, representing clarity, ambition, and a practical transformation journey. Transformation work often starts with a platform, a programme name