TRUSTWORTHY AGENTIC AI · FOR BOARDS
Building the Foundations Boards Need Before AI Agents Act
When agents act under your authority, the consequences carry your name. I help boards and executives put the foundations in place first.
Your board approved AI agents. They no longer just answer questions; they take actions — moving money, changing settings, sending messages — faster than anyone can review, and the organisation is fully liable for what they do. Three questions, before the next one goes live:
Can you say exactly what an agent is allowed to do, and who approved it?
Once it is live, who can halt it in seconds, without convening a committee?
After it acts, can you reconstruct what it was authorised to do — or only read the logs once the damage is done?
If the answer to any of these is no, you don't have governance — you have hope. The missing piece is not a better model; it is control over the meaning your agents reason from, in an open form you own rather than rent. That is the argument of The Ontology Imperative.
THE COMPASS
How the series fits together
The series builds one argument in four moves — the foundation it rests on, the crisis it answers, the mandate it creates, and the playbook to act on it.
01
Foundation
Own the ontology — the meaning layer your agents reason from.
• PUBLISHED
WHERE TO FOLLOW IT
02
Crisis
Governance built for human tempo breaks at machine speed.
• PUBLISHED
On LinkedIn — posts & the newsletter, ideas in the open
03
Mandate
Who must own it — the board's duty, and a clear CDO mandate.
• PUBLISHED
04
Playbook
The tools to act — the Capability Stack, diagnostics, and the gates.
• IN PROGRESS
On Substack — the long reads, a theme distilled
In the library — the artifacts: the Capability Stack, frameworks, checklists
Three routes
The Ontology Imperative
The series. A board-level roadmap
The Reference Library
Board briefing, Capability Stack, Diagnostics
Track Record
20 years across digital, data and AI
For board advisory, speaking, or executive conversations on agentic AI governance and the meaning layer.