evergences®ENGAGEMENT BRIEF / 05

AI DIRECTION, DELIVERY & LEADERSHIP TRANSITION

Interim Chief
AI Officer

Set the direction. Start delivering. Hand over.

Establish your AI priorities and start delivering useful capabilities while you find the right permanent leader. Sean Everett connects business decisions with hands-on delivery, then prepares an orderly handover.

What it is
Interim AI leadership to establish direction, start delivery and prepare a permanent-leader handover.
Who it is for
Companies that need accountable AI leadership while selecting the right permanent leader.
Investment required
Scope-based fees and timing agreed in a proposal. An executive sponsor, available business and technical leads, and approved access are needed.
Transformation
Move from scattered initiatives to prioritized outcomes, an evaluated pilot, clear ownership and an actionable roadmap.
Intended benefit
A stronger basis for AI investment and leadership continuity. Pilot results inform the next decision; business impact must be measured.

WHAT YOU RECEIVE

Three useful outputs.

  1. AI direction and operating plan

    Prioritized business outcomes, data and technology readiness, decision owners, governance and a practical roadmap with dependencies and measures.

  2. A bounded pilot and evidence

    One agreed workflow, a current baseline, authorized data and evaluation criteria. Establish AI cost-per-outcome and gross-margin baselines before deciding whether to scale. Build and test within scope, record quality, cost and usefulness, then decide whether to stop, improve or expand. Receive a scorecard connecting adoption and usage, costs and verified business outcomes, with evidence gaps made explicit.

  3. Team definition and leadership handover

    Team responsibilities, a permanent-leader role brief and selection criteria, support for candidate evaluation, and a handover of decisions, systems, risks and next steps.

From direction to continuity

  1. Prioritize. Agree valuable outcomes, constraints and readiness gaps with business and technical owners.
  2. Prove. Set the pilot boundary, baseline and evaluation before building.
  3. Organize. Assign delivery, data access, human review and release decisions; define the team and hiring needs.
  4. Transfer. Support leader selection, transfer context and review open decisions with the incoming leader.

What you bring

  • An executive sponsor with authority to set priorities and name decision owners.
  • Business and technical leads, representative users, and approved access to relevant data and systems.
  • A hiring decision owner and participation in pilot evaluation and handover.

Clear boundaries

Agree authority, access, pilot scope, review gates and handover responsibilities before work begins. Wider rollout requires a separate decision based on evidence.

The company retains hiring, budget and risk acceptance decisions. This offer excludes recruiting placement, unagreed production rollout and ongoing managed operations. Business impact must be measured.

Start with three answers

  1. Which business outcome should AI improve first?
  2. What data, systems and team are ready?
  3. Who owns decisions and the permanent-leader search?

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

Advice connected to delivery

Sean’s public work includes global product and delivery leadership for an employee AI platform and interim executive responsibilities across businesses. His biography connects mathematical training, product development and board advisory. Driving AI ROI explains his view of the experience AI leadership needs.

Discuss the leadership need first.

Email a nonconfidential overview of your priorities and leadership gap. Scope, fees and timing agreed in a proposal.

Discuss your AI leadership
sean@evergences.comevergences.com/services/interim-chief-ai-officer/