Finding The Right Leader For Your Company's AI Strategy

Forbes

30-06-2025

While medium-sized businesses are pessimistic about the economy, they're confident in themselves. J.P. Morgan's 2025 Business Leaders Outlook Pulse Survey found that even though optimism for the national economy fell by more than half in the last six months—with just under a third feeling positive about the big picture—85% project steady to increased company performance through the end of the year.
More than half of business leaders—58%—said they feel optimistic about their company performance. And while that's a substantial drop from the 75% who felt upbeat in a December survey, it's still a significant number, especially as 32% of business leaders either expect a recession this year or think we're already experiencing one.
A significant number of business leaders—44%—said they've held off on their plans for the year. Almost three-quarters say that decision is the result of policy uncertainty. And companies cite uncertain economic conditions as their top challenge, followed by tariffs. However, businesses aren't stopping at all, with 14% accelerating their plans for 2025, seeing how things go in the uncertain economy. Depending on how things pan out, this year may truly be one of the more challenging times to prove business resilience.
Policy and tariffs aside, technology advances and the rise of AI are also moving the business world. Who at your company should take the lead? Chad Hesters, CEO of executive search firm Boyden, has helped several companies figure that out and spoke with me about the process. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.
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President Donald Trump holds up a chart at the "Liberation Day" trade announcement in April.Stock markets finally fully recovered last week from their early April 'Liberation Day' drop, when President Donald Trump announced his slate of sweeping tariffs on other nations. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit their first highs in four months this week, setting a record level for both indexes on Friday. Leading analysts aren't optimistic that the highs will keep coming, though. JPMorganChase top global strategist Dubravko Lakos-Bujas forecast the S&P will end the year 2% lower than Friday, citing the 'lagged effects of new policies (i.e., tariffs, immigration, DOGE).'
Stocks have been able to rebound because, for the most part, the tariff threat has only been just that. While Trump has announced dates by which different tariffs would go into effect, those deadlines have often been moved forward or paused to allow for negotiations. And negotiations have been ongoing, sometimes to benefit the United States. After Trump abruptly ended negotiations on Friday with Canada over that country's new digital service tax—a 3% charge on foreign tech companies for revenue generated from Canadian users—the Canadian government decided over the weekend to rescind the tax. Stocks were slightly up after markets opened Monday morning.
But tariffs—and how suddenly they may go into effect—loom large. Trump said on Friday that he holds the cards on whenever tariffs start. Many were set to begin on July 9, and Trump said he could extend it—or expedite the deadline, which he said was his preference.
Tariffs and the economic uncertainty haven't impacted prices too deeply just yet, though May's inflation inched up more than expected last month, reaching 2.7%, according to the core personal consumption expenditures index—excluding food and energy categories. Some analysts expect a continued rise in inflation as Trump's tariffs actually go into effect and raise consumer prices.
The increase is above the Federal Reserve's preferred 2% rate, so last month's numbers may show further proof that the Fed acted appropriately when it didn't lower interest rates—but Trump has been itching to dismiss Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell because of his unwillingness to drop them on command. While Trump has said he will let Powell serve to the end of his term next May—even though he constantly berates him—the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump may name Powell's successor this fall, allowing a 'shadow' Fed chair to operate and share their preferred policy choices—something analysts have said would definitively undermine Powell. NOTABLE NEWS
School supplies are on display at a Target in New York City. Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Although the 145% tariffs on China only lasted for about a month, analysts fear they will be most acutely felt at back-to-school time. A study released from PwC last week found that nearly three-fourths of U.S. families expect to spend the same amount or more on back-to-school shopping this year, writes Forbes senior contributor Joan Verdon. But this doesn't mean they intend to buy more—they're prepared for what they need to buy to be more expensive. Families are planning money-saving strategies: About two in five plan on only buying items on sale, while the same proportion is likely to shop earlier. Nearly a quarter will purchase more store-branded products, while 18% are looking to shop secondhand.
Consumer confidence continues to be down, dropping by 5.4 points this month alone, according to the latest figures from the Conference Board. The Conference Board reports that June's retreat in consumer confidence, currently at 93, declined across all age and political groups. It also was shared by most income groups. The largest decline was among Republicans. BIG MOVES
Anna Wintour at the Tony Awards earlier this month. John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images
A legendary business leader announced last week that she is stepping down from a position she's held for nearly four decades. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who is often associated with the fashion industry itself, is stepping back from the U.S. magazine's editorial operations, though the timeline for her exit is unclear. She will not be leaving Condé Nast, the company that publishes Vogue , and will remain its global chief content officer, as well as the editorial director of the global editions of Vogue . Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch told the Wall Street Journal that Wintour has been working three jobs at the company since 2020, and it makes sense to step back from one of them.
Wintour has been editor of Vogue since 1988, and has been credited with igniting the magazine's appeal. She's also co-chaired the Met Gala since 1995, making it an extravagant fashion event. Her iconic persona is known far beyond the fashion world—even allegedly inspiring the infamously overbearing boss in the book and movie The Devil Wears Prada —and replacing an executive who is so well-known will be a difficult task. Forbes senior contributor Toni Fitzgerald handicaps some potential successors, but none has Wintour's name recognition outside of the publishing industry. TOMORROW'S TRENDS Who Should Be In Charge Of Your Company's AI?
Boyden CEO Chad Hesters. Copyright 2023, Gittings
As you bring AI into your company, one of the looming questions is who should oversee it. Do you need a chief AI officer? Is it a job for the CIO or CTO? Should the CEO's office be handling it? Chad Hesters, CEO of executive search firm Boyden, has worked with many leaders who are grabbling with the same questions. I spoke with him about how CEOs can find the right answer for their company. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.
AI is something that every business is using, and many have plans to get much deeper into it. At this point, which C-suite department tends to be handling AI in companies?
Hesters: At the first phase when AI showed up, everybody said, 'AI is a thing. We must master this thing in order to become world class at whatever we do.' Followed by, 'We need a chief AI officer. We need a chief innovation officer.'
We've moved to phase two of that evolution. Companies are realizing what's more important is creating the environment for individuals, departments, functions to evolve, and the mechanisms which allow them to do that. AI right now is a set of tools that we can all use to make us more efficient or produce a better product. The more sophisticated companies, the ones that are at the leading edge, have realized that the key is to let the individual employee have some authority to understand what might be able to help them do their job better. Then design the entire system to take these ideas, feed them into the system and be able to vet [privacy and security], but still allow for that micro-level innovation.
It's like crowdsourcing innovation inside a company. Leading companies have gotten over the arrogance that you could have one officer and one function inside a company to drive all of innovation for the company, when really it's that 24-year-old that you just got out of the MBA program who says, 'Hey, I heard about this new tool. Maybe we should look at it.'
What you're seeing is the chief technology officer own the process. How do you set up the conditions inside a company that allow for good ideas to percolate and crowdsource? That's the CTO's job.
If you have a chief innovation officer, their job is to prioritize what are the areas that we need top-level capital investment to innovate in. That's the top-down approach.
You've got a top-down/bottoms-up approach to AI now. The companies that are leading seem to be approaching it from that perspective.
C-suite titles and responsibilities are always evolving. Where do you see AI going in terms of corporate responsibility? Do you see more chief AI officers in the future? Will AI get divided into different departments? Will it all come under the CIO?
You need leaders that understand that technology and innovation is not a nice-to-have. It's required for survival in today's environment. If they understand that, and are willing to try to adopt those potential efficiency gains in their functional areas and cross-functionally, you need to have the internal processes and capabilities to do it. You've got to have a chief person that knows how to conduct an innovation pipeline appropriately: responsible and safe and still allow a lot of freedom to innovate. They have to design the process, and then they have to have the actual systems in place.
Let's look at how much energy AI processes can utilize. Who owns that? If you all of a sudden are sitting on a bunch of data and you want to start crunching it and to use an AI tool, are you going to build your own data center? Are you going to co-opt it? Where do those energy prices go? Do you pass those onto your customers? Do you need it internally? What are you giving up to do that? There's always a knock-on effect. It's not just, 'Look! We've got a new tool.' When you want to roll out that new tool, that new way of doing business, you've got to bring all the other functional leaders into the room to look at the 360-approach to what it's going to do.
The energy aspect of this is fascinating when you think about sustainability and how we tie it in. How do you ensure that the AI tools you're using are not over-indexing some kind of bias that at a minimum is going to help you make poor decisions, but in a really scary world, create biases and risk and liabilities for your company?
It's almost foolish to assume you could appoint one person and call them the chief AI officer and it's all going to be fine. It's really got to be a management team mindset, and everybody's got to be at the table. Then you've got to be willing to look externally as well. You've got to bring other stakeholders.
What advice would you give to a CEO that is struggling with where to put AI leadership right now?
Don't think about AI first. Think about what are the critical competencies that your organization has to have to achieve your strategy? That's the answer to where we make investments in AI and innovation. You could outsource a lot of the secondary requirements and services your company has, but a CEO should be investing in the critical functions and capabilities it needs to achieve the strategy. When you're looking where that extra dollar of investment goes, it should go to the tools and capabilities that allow you to achieve that strategy.
It's very easy to get distracted today. There's so many cool products and AI tools out there that you could chase around, and at the end of the year have lots of new products that don't really do much for your strategy. That's the opposite of what a CEO should be doing.
In the past six to eight months, we've looked at 40 different AI tools that could help us with our key critical functions. We're staying focused on that. Only four or five made it through our innovation funnel, but that's four or five different tools we've got that are really helping us execute for our clients the tasks that they've hired us to do. And we can do it with a much higher degree of quality and faster. COMINGS + GOINGS Generic pharmaceutical giant Sun Pharma appointed Richard Ascroft as CEO of its North America operations, effective June 16. Ascroft joins the firm from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and succeeds Abhay Gandhi in the role.
appointed as CEO of its North America operations, effective June 16. Ascroft joins the firm from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and succeeds Abhay Gandhi in the role. Integrated health care provider CareMore Health selected Sam Wald as its new chief executive officer. Wald previously worked in leadership at WelbeHealth and Optum.
selected as its new chief executive officer. Wald previously worked in leadership at WelbeHealth and Optum. Work management platform Asana named Dan Rogers as its next CEO, effective July 21. Rogers most recently worked in the same role at LaunchDarkly, and he will succeed Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who will remain board chair.
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Will AI displace workers and eliminate jobs, or will it transform companies to be more lucrative with different kinds of workers? Nothing is certain at this point, but leaders need to be thoughtful about how they're using the technology as the working world figures it out. QUIZ
Warren Buffett, who has pledged to give away most of his wealth, gave the largest amount in nearly 20 years to charities over the weekend. How much did Buffett donate?
A. $800 million
B. $1.7 billion
C. $3.9 billion
D. $6 billion
See if you got it right here.