Six weeks, twelve live sessions. Take AI strategy from theory into delivery: assess the business, build the opportunity pipeline, defend ROI at the workflow level, and earn the mandate that lets you execute.
Both have drifted so far from execution that frameworks became a dirty word. The organizing commitment here is that a framework has to be actionable. If it does not change a decision, move a metric, or survive contact with your actual constraints, it does not work. That test is binary.
Everything is taught twice: how it looks if the business were set up perfectly, and how it looks given the constraints, gaps, and partial maturity you actually have. You should expect to use the second version.
The course states its own boundary plainly. Strategy ends at opportunity discovery. Roadmap construction belongs to the product management certification and pricing belongs to platform monetization.
Cohorts typically mix domains, and case studies are swapped to match what is in the room. Name your vertical, platform paradigm, or client type in week one.
Data and AI leaders who own the strategy and need it to survive a C-suite challenge.
Technology leaders moving into strategy. Expect the first weeks to feel unfamiliar. One participant described it as the first time on a surfboard.
Consultants and independent strategists who need a repeatable assessment and engagement they can sell.
Business leaders running a transformation who need the technology model to become legible.
Anyone handed an AI mandate with no definition of the job, no budget line, and no help.
No technical prerequisite. No MBA and no machine learning background required.
The strongest matches are Director or VP of AI Strategy, Director of AI Transformation, CDAO, and the independent consultant or fractional CAIO, each scoring 14 out of 15 against the published job descriptions.
Check the role match →This course ends at opportunity discovery. If you own a product roadmap that has to make money, AI Product Management is the right course. If you own a platform P&L and its pricing, take Platform Monetization. It also teaches no governance or model risk content, which matters if that is part of your mandate.
Director, AI Strategy & Solutions and similar titles.
Head of AI Transformation and similar titles.
CDAO and similar titles.
Principal at your own firm and similar titles.
Chief AI Officer and similar titles.
Manager / Senior Manager / Principal, Data & AI Strategy and similar titles.
The first belongs to the business: broken, expensive, or stalled. The second belongs to you, and it is usually the reason someone enrolls. Most strategy training solves the first and leaves you to work out the second alone.
The workflow never changed, so no value could be created. AI attached to an unchanged process is bolt-on AI, and there has never been bolt-on AI with positive ROI. You learn the diagnostic test, the Perfect Workflow method, and why Consolidation and Compression show up every time.
The two-dollars-per-conversation problem: an agent priced above the human cost of the same unchanged workflow. Addressed through Simplify, Standardize, Automate, Continuously Improve, plus the test that tells you when costs are scaling faster than returns.
ROI can no longer be promised for someday, and it is not credible at the token level, because you cannot convert tokens to outcomes. The AI ROI Problem framework puts the calculation at the workflow level and makes it defensible upfront.
Phases equal Gates: define the gates instead of the dates and fund each separately. You are not saying you do not know. You are saying you are going to learn.
The Opportunity Pipeline narrows to five or ten by selecting for the profile of outperformance rather than by whoever lobbied hardest, and turns prioritization into a recurring quarterly act.
The Data Monetization Catalog connects every data set to the use cases it serves, and the With-and-Without method attaches a number. Expect to go through the Seven Stages of Data Grief on the way.
The most common constraint in every cohort. Bottom-up discovery starts with frontline teams and over-ambitious KPI goals, stacks two or three wins, and earns the meeting. Coalition Building maps the roughly six-month path from unknown in the building to a C-level mandate.
The Halfway Mandate. The fix is structural: budget line items for the other units, and a clear answer to what is in it for them.
Dolphin Data. You learn the four causes, which are a literacy gap, no budget or mandate, misaligned strategic goals, or a unit that survives on opacity, and which of the four is actually your mistake.
Framework Certainty: hear the challenge, name the framework, position it as the bridge, position yourself as the implementer. Week six runs live pushback drills where the instructor plays your CEO and resists.
Increasing the pain of resistance has never worked for anyone in the room. Decreasing the pain of acceptance is the entire approach, and it is a different set of moves.
Opportunity discovery is the Trojan Horse: own it and you are tied to the P&L, which is ground truth. The Three Talent Categories are blunt about where the ground is shifting, from laborers following processes to strategists building frameworks.
Each week pairs a Monday session on concepts and models with a Friday session on application, mechanics, and communication. The first three weeks run slow and the last three run fast, because questions asked early cover material taught later.
Rather than cataloging technology. A strategy document with vision and scope, an assessment, and a defensible sequence.
Seven assessment points, run as a repeatable engagement you can sell or use internally.
And hold a standing opportunity pipeline instead of a once-every-three-years scramble.
Produced before the money is spent, not after.
Gates instead of dates, funded separately, with explicit abort criteria.
And a defined next step, drilled live in week six against real pushback.
There are roughly forty slides in the week-one deck and no expectation of getting through them. The slides are an anchor, not a script. The questions are what turn a theoretical study into an applied one.
Six weeks, plus about an hour of open Q&A after each session if you can stay on.
Drop-in, no booking. Monday 5:00pm PT and Wednesday 8:00am PT, cross-cohort so you hear other classes' questions.
A confidential hour, schedulable from week three through two weeks after the final session.
Recordings and slides emailed roughly an hour after each session.
Exercises exist to change how you think about a problem, not to be graded. The two yardsticks are whether your questions jump ahead of the material and whether they get sharper.
Sessions include shadow participants you cannot see. Keep specifics out of session and bring them to the 1:1 or email instead.
Some students expense the tuition, and approval depends entirely on your employer's policy. Many companies have a training or learning budget, and some do not extend it to external certifications. The guide below includes a request template you can adapt and forward to your manager, framing the tuition against the cost of a single misdirected AI initiative.
Get the guide →The guide covers requesting an invoice as proof of payment, what the certificate of completion contains, and a manager email template. Before you send it, add the cost of one misdirected initiative in your organization, the specific decision this course changes, and a dated commitment: what you will produce within 90 days of finishing, such as a completed assessment and a sized opportunity pipeline. Ask your manager what approval path applies.
“Getting buy-in for your projects from C-leaders was invaluable for me. The initial assessment and opportunity discovery changed how I work.”
“One of the most valuable learning experiences at this stage of my career, as I transitioned into a leadership role. Incredible, digestible content for technical folks.”
“I used frameworks I learned on Friday in Monday meetings. I did not expect immediate results, but the frameworks become habits.”
“Where was this five years ago? I sent all my reports to take it so they would not stumble in the dark.”
Vin Vashishta is the author of From Data To Profit (Wiley) and a LinkedIn Top Voice since 2017. Every framework in this course has been used in the field, with clients including Airbus, Siemens, Walmart, and JPMorgan Chase.
Designed for technical professionals with no business background, and for leaders who need AI to earn its budget. A companion framework taxonomy catalogs roughly 130 named frameworks from this course, grouped by the job each one does.
No. There is no technical prerequisite. Cohorts mix data leaders, engineers, consultants, and business leaders running transformations.
If you come from engineering, expect the strategy material to feel unfamiliar at first. One participant described it as the first time on a surfboard. If you come from the business side, expect the same in reverse during the technology model and platform sessions. Everything is taught twice: the ideal version, and the version that survives your actual constraints.
They are two distinct roles, and the material is explicit that owning both at once means doing both badly. This course is dominated by influence, change, and organization, at 26 frameworks, more than any family in any course in the portfolio.
Product management has zero frameworks in that family and is built around execution: discovery, architecture, maturity, roadmap, pricing, and go-to-market. Take this one if you need a mandate. Take that one if you have the mandate and need a plan.
Twelve live sessions over six weeks, Mondays and Fridays from 8:00 to 9:30am PT, plus about an hour of open Q&A after each session if you can stay on. Exercises are assigned throughout and are not graded.
Sessions are recorded and emailed roughly an hour afterward, so a missed week is recoverable.
Drop-in office hours continue for a full year, twice weekly, with no booking required. They are cross-cohort, so you also hear questions from other classes and previous cohorts.
Expect to come back around month three. The first three months tend to be a honeymoon because everything is new, and the first real barrier usually shows up right after that.
Yes, and you are asked to. Tell the instructor your vertical, platform paradigm, or client type in week one and case studies get swapped to match. There are hundreds available.
Week three asks you to bring an opportunity with baggage, meaning barrier after barrier, because those are the ones competitors will not touch.
Sessions include participants you can see and shadow participants you cannot, so ground rule six asks you to keep specifics about your business out of session.
The one-on-one is protected. For anything sensitive, send additional context by email and get a more granular answer offline.
Some students do, and approval depends entirely on your employer's policy. Many companies have a training or learning budget, and some do not extend it to external certifications.
There is a reimbursement assistance guide on this page, written to be forwarded to a manager. It covers requesting an invoice as proof of payment, the certificate of completion, and an email template. Whether it is approved is between you and your employer.
Seats are limited to keep cohorts small and Q&A useful. Bring the barrier you think breaks it.
Reserve your seat →