Case Studies
Moving Beyond Pilot Purgatory: Global CPG scaled AI adoption
The Strategic Challenge
A Fortune 500 consumer goods leadership team faced the classic AI dilemma: how to move from scattered experiments to organization-wide implementation that drives business results. Their generative AI pilots were stalling, and executives needed to avoid joining the 42% of companies that abandon AI initiatives.
Our Executive + Operational Approach
We partnered with leadership to develop clear AI priorities aligned with business strategy. We helped the business units identify specific business problems where AI could drive measurable P&L impact.
Working with high-performing teams of internal AI Champions, we coached employees to collaborate differently with generative AI. We built new AI assistants while maintaining control of strategic thinking and creative output.
We facilitated sessions over 16 weeks where teams identified and prioritized AI applications for their workflows. Employees chose where AI could amplify their expertise across R&D, consumer insights, and operations.
Measurable Results
The leaders and their teams gained a clear framework for evaluating AI initiatives based on scalability and business value. Over 3,000 employees created AI applications for their specific needs. Teams now generate consumer insights in hours instead of weeks, and innovation cycles are accelerated with humans maintaining creative control.
The organization discovered where AI delivers enterprise-wide value, not just isolated productivity gains.
What We Learned
Four insights emerged from this transformation:
AI investments must align with business priorities to deliver meaningful value
User experience drives adoption more than technical sophistication
The most valuable AI applications enhance human expertise instead of replacing it
Key Success Factors
We focused on humans piloting AI, not AI replacing humans. High-performing employees learned to leverage AI while keeping their expertise at the center of decision-making.
Financial Payments Leadership Alignment: From Strategic Uncertainty to Acquisition
The Strategic Challenge
A retail financial payments company's leadership team was struggling to align on how AI could grow their retail payments business. While acquisition discussions were underway, buyers lacked confidence in the company's strategic direction and AI capability, causing delays in deal progression.
Our Executive + Operational Fluency Approach
We started with a comprehensive readiness assessment to understand where the leadership team stood on AI strategy and organizational capability. This revealed gaps in strategic consensus and implementation planning that were creating uncertainty for potential acquirers.
How We Did It
Over 120 days, we facilitated a series of executive workshops focused on AI growth opportunities in retail payments. Working with business, marketing, and technical teams, we helped leadership identify and prioritize high-value, low-risk AI investments that aligned with their core business strategy.
Our approach combined strategic alignment sessions with practical capability building. We established governance frameworks and guardrails while ensuring the leadership team could speak confidently about their AI roadmap and execution capability.
Measurable Business Results
The executive team achieved clear consensus on AI-driven growth strategy for retail payments. They gained confidence in articulating their vision and implementation approach to potential buyers.
The accelerated growth plan and strategic clarity gave acquisition partners confidence in the leadership team's ability to execute. Acquisition discussions that had stalled moved forward, culminating in a successful transaction.
What Made the Difference
Strategic alignment happens when leadership teams work through decisions together rather than receiving external recommendations. By facilitating their strategic thinking process, we helped them build genuine consensus and ownership of their AI growth strategy.
Aligning Leadership Around Shared Vision for Greater Impact
The Strategic Challenge:
A national technology nonprofit focused on underserved communities was ready to accelerate their impact but needed stakeholder alignment around AI strategy and technology direction. They recognized AI as central to their future impact and needed leadership alignment to leverage their unique capabilities effectively.
Our Executive + Operational Approach
We deployed our Human+AI collaborative methodology that combines executive strategic thinking with operational delivery capability. Instead of creating strategy for them, we facilitated sessions where their leadership team developed competing vision statements while AI provided real-time pattern recognition and market analysis.
During our strategic sessions, breaking news emerged about a major competitor partnership. Traditional consulting would have required weeks of additional research. Our Human+AI approach incorporated this intelligence immediately, allowing real-time strategy adjustment.
The collaborative partnership with their board and C-suite helped them create their own strategic framework rather than imposing external recommendations.
Measurable Business Results
Speed: Completed AI-powered analysis 5X faster than traditional management consulting approaches, enabling rapid market response.
Cost: Achieved 10X cost advantage while maintaining analytical quality, making sophisticated strategy accessible for mission-driven organizations.
Leadership Buy-in: 100% executive alignment and immediate implementation readiness because the team created their own strategy.
Lasting Impact: Built internal strategy skills that stay with the organization, creating advantage beyond the immediate project.
Ready to Execute: Board-ready analysis with budget priorities and partnership opportunities identified—no months-long gap between strategy and implementation.
AI “is making me love marketing again!"
Marketing Team Breakthrough: 440% Campaign Growth
A payments company's marketing team was stuck with poor conversion results despite big investments. Leadership needed Marketing to work with Sales drive real business growth.
We partnered with the team to combine their marketing expertise with AI-powered customer data insights. The marketers stayed in control of strategy and creative decisions while AI handled data analysis and campaign automation.
Results: 440% increase in personalized campaigns. The team gained new capabilities without losing their strategic edge. It re-engaged a team that was stretched thin as they saw the potential to deliver stronger impact to the business.
Why it worked: The marketing team piloted the AI tools instead of adapting to them. Their expertise remained central while AI amplified their execution speed and data insights.