The 5 Joint Mandates for AI Transformation

We hosted an intimate dinner in NYC with some of the city’s top executives and I couldn’t help but notice some interesting patterns emerged. The conversation sounded strikingly similar to the webinar we’d run just a week earlier with JoAnn Stonier, Fellow of Data & AI at Mastercard, and Michael Fraccaro, Fellow and former CPO of Mastercard.

The same big themes, or mandates, kept coming up: where CIO and CHRO priorities must move in lockstep to truly build an AI-powered workforce.

The team has turned these mandates into five board-ready strategies. For each, you’ll see:

• What the CIO must do
• What the CHRO must do
• The joint mandate to deliver impact

Here’s an overview of what we found:

Mandate 1: Use one shared operating system for AI transformation

CIO must: Map work and ROI before deploying AI to avoid flying blind.
CHRO must: Lead change adoption and ensure tech connects meaningfully to talent.

Mandate 2: Map work at the task level

CIO must: Use task-level visibility to decide where to build, buy, or deploy agents.
CHRO must: Rebuild job architectures with real task data to plan skills and pivots.

Mandate 3: Show ROI early and build confidence

CIO must: Govern AI use at the enterprise level to prevent chaos and fragmentation.
CHRO must: Build employee trust with clear communication, upskilling, and adoption programs.

Mandate 4: Reinvent in loops: Test, learn, scale

CIO must: Run proofs of concept, measure impact, and scale what works.
CHRO must: Pilot org design, reskilling, and comms to test and refine in motion.

Mandate 5: Design a human + AI workforce and put it into practice

CIO must: Build data models that show work shifts, agent fit, and ROI.
CHRO must: Translate models into reskilling plans, career pivots, and skills investments.

To get the entire board-ready deck, drop a comment below or click “add a comment” in the margin and we’ll send it your way.

Siobhan 💜