Auditor turned operator turned director. Board-level AI and cyber governance for Australian companies at a regulatory moment that demands operator depth, not just oversight.
Ninety-five percent of organisations have an AI strategy. Only 8% have measurable ROI. That 87-point gap isn't an AI problem — it's a governance problem, and it's showing up on directors' watches.
One boardroom question
In every significant AI project currently underway, at what point in the design process was governance applied — at inception, or when something went wrong?
Twelve years at EY across Brisbane and Sydney — Big Four audit, then transactions: financial and operational due diligence. In 2018 I co-founded REDD Digital, where I served as CEO and Managing Director, building a managed IT and managed security services business delivering to Queensland government agencies and departments. We sold to a US private equity acquirer in 2025.
Today I run Orange AI — an AI consultancy focused on strategy, automation, and development — and serve as principal of a multi-entity family investment office. I completed the AICD Company Directors Course in 2026 (GAICD) and remain a registered Chartered Accountant through Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand.
I'm currently seeking independent board positions where operator-depth technology experience and active capital-allocation are load-bearing — NFP, medium private, major private, and ASX boards alike.
A director's perspective on AI, capital, and the boardroom. Each edition takes a real-world governance moment and reads it through a director's lens.
Researched and drafted by Brad's agentic AI team. Edited and published by Brad Ferris.
74% of companies plan to deploy agentic AI within two years. Only 21% have a mature governance model for autonomous agents. That gap is where organisations will be exposed — and where directors need to act before, not after, deployment.
McKinsey's 2026 AI Trust survey reports trust maturity is rising on average, but only one-third of organisations hit a meaningful score on governance and agentic-AI controls. The blind spot in their analysis is more revealing than the findings: governance is treated as a management function. Directors are absent. That mirrors how most organisations are actually structuring this work — and it is exactly the gap a board has to close before the next agentic deployment is approved.
Australian companies are investing heavily in AI and worker adoption is rising — but enterprise productivity gains remain elusive. The problem isn't the technology. It's that boards are approving AI spend without overseeing the organisational transformation that determines whether that investment ever returns value.
For board opportunities, advisory engagements, or AI strategy conversations. Email is the fastest path; my AI agents help me triage, but every reply is mine.