Function-leader CEO-intro kit
You see where AI would help your function. But the path runs through your CEO. This kit gives you three things to arrive with: a one-page memo, a five-minute verbal script, and a short FAQ that anticipates the objections before they surface.
The one-page memo
Fill in every bracket. One page — no attachments except the ROI Worksheet. A good one-pager takes longer to write than a deck because it forces you to have thought things through.
To: [CEO] From: [you, function] Date: ______
Re: A scoped AI pilot in [function] — and a request
The workflow. In [function], we spend [X hours / $Y per month] on [specific task: ______]. It is repetitive, rule-shaped, and a good fit for AI handling the first pass while we review.
The before/after.
Today: ______
With AI: ______
Human sign-off on: ______
The money. Roughly $______ saved per month. Payback in approximately ______ months. (Detail from the ROI Worksheet attached.)
The guardrail. [Choose the honest one for your function:]
- ☐ Finance: full audit trail on every extraction and match; human approves exceptions.
- ☐ HR: stays behind a bias audit and human approval gate on any hiring-related decision, per NYC Local Law 144 and active litigation in this category. Administrative workflows only at first.
- ☐ Customer ops: AI handles routing and FAQ deflection; human owns every resolution that requires judgment or a policy call.
- ☐ Marketing: AI drafts at volume; a named person owns voice, positioning, and final approval before anything goes out.
The ask. A 90-day pilot on this one workflow. Pre-agreed metric: ______. Kill-criterion: if [metric] does not move by [target] in 90 days, we stop. [Or: a 30-minute conversation with someone who has done this before.]
Execution owner: ______
The five-minute script
Practice this before the conversation. If you cannot say it in five minutes, you have not finished thinking. Deliver it, then stop talking and let the CEO ask.
"Quick one. There's a workflow in [function] that eats about [X hours] a month — [name the task]. It's the boring, repetitive kind that AI is actually good at. I'm not asking to reinvent the function. I want to run a 90-day pilot on that one thing, with a number we agree on up front and a clear point where we kill it if it's not working. Worst case, we learn something cheap. Best case, it pays for itself in [N] months and frees up [the team] for the work that actually needs judgment. Can I put a one-pager in front of you this week?"
Your fill-ins:
- Function: ______
- Task to name: ______
- Hours per month: ______
- Payback estimate (months): ______
- What the team could do instead: ______
The FAQ — questions you will get
| The question | The honest answer (fill in your specifics) |
|---|---|
| "What about the data? Where does it go?" | We've assessed what data this system would touch, where it lives, whether it leaves our environment, and what the vendor's data handling terms say. [Fill in your actual answer before the meeting — if you can't, answer it first.] ______ |
| "What if it's wrong?" | It will be, sometimes. That's why a person reviews [______] before it goes anywhere consequential, and why every action gets logged. We see the errors and fix them. The AI does not make the final call on [______]. |
| "Why now?" | [Pick the honest one:] ☐ The cost of this technology has dropped to where the math works for a firm our size. ☐ The compliance exposure in this area is getting closer and we should get ahead of it. ☐ The team's time is currently going to work that doesn't require them. ☐ Other: ______ |
| "Isn't this the kind of project that takes over a year and delivers nothing?" | The ones that fail are the ambitious, unscoped projects. This is the opposite: one bounded workflow, a human signing off, a kill-criterion at 90 days. Boring on purpose. |
| "Who's going to run this? You're already busy." | [☐ I'll own the pilot — it's scoped small enough to manage alongside my current load. ☐ I'd want a fractional implementation resource for the quarter so it doesn't depend on me alone.] |
| "What do you need from me today?" | [One specific thing. Name it before the meeting:] ______ |
Before you leave for the meeting
- ☐ The ROI Worksheet is filled in with real numbers from your function — not vendor estimates.
- ☐ You know which compliance framework applies to your use case (finance audit trail, HR bias audit, customer data handling).
- ☐ You have named the pilot owner, the metric, and the kill-criterion.
- ☐ You know the one specific thing you are asking the CEO to approve.
The functional leader who arrives with the use case, the compliance story, and the before/after is the person who gets the yes.
Want a second set of eyes on this in your firm? The no-sell promise applies — if it isn't a fit, I'll tell you in the first ten minutes.
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