Keynote speaker and advisor on AI and human judgement

AI is not coming for your job. It is coming for your judgement.

The hard part for leaders is deciding which decisions the machines may make, who can stop them, and what their people must remain able to do.

Book Rahim to speak Advisory for leaders and boards

Running the company? Send me your AI strategy for a written second opinion in two working days.

Leading people? Start with the HR keynote, or the CHRO’s guide to AI.

Author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, part of Hachette UK), endorsed by Karim Lakhani of Harvard Business School · Has spoken to leadership teams at Google, Barclays and Kaplan · Founded EtonX, acquired by Eton College · Box of Amazing, since 2017

On stage at

CIPD Festival of Work
London Tech Week
Korn Ferry
Imperial College
Dubai Arbitration Week
Echo360

the full record

Track record

Led Quizlet’s international growth across more than 60 countries
Aga Khan Education Board for the UK
Previously on the boards of EtonX, TeacherMatic and Whitefox
BBC, Director (Institute of Directors, a top pick for Q4 2026), People Management (CIPD), The New York Observer, The European Business Review

the reviews

Endorsed by

Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School
David Rowan, founding Editor-in-Chief, WIRED UK
David Gareth Thomas, formerly Chief People Officer, HSBC APAC
Professor Alnoor Bhimani, LSE
Sherry Coutu CBE, entrepreneur and non-executive director

All fourteen endorsements

It is not easy to walk into a room full of super bright and very successful people and keep them completely focused and engaged for the duration of the talk, without the help of any gimmicks (slides etc), just thanks to the power of the message and your story.”

Gosia Rosa, Mulberry Bow, after a leaders’ dinner in London

Keynotes

The same argument, in front of your senior people.

Rahim Hirji on the main stage at the CIPD Festival of Work

▶ Watch the showreel · Drift versus Design

Signature keynote

Drift versus Design

It shows which of two modes your organisation is running, then hands you the controls. Most drift. The ones that design build capability on purpose, and can prove it.

All three talks

Where I speak: London and the UK · Europe · the Middle East and the Gulf · Asia · North America.

Fees and what moves them, or download the one-page brief.

It works for an all-hands, a leadership offsite or a board day as well as a conference slot, with the evidence chosen for who will be listening. There are versions built for schools, universities and education leaders, for HR and CHRO conferences, for boards and leadership offsites, for early careers and graduate talent, and for corporate conferences.

Speaker information: speaker pack, showreel (2 min), fees and bios

In their words

We brought Rahim in to help our EMEA People Operations leadership team think through AI and human judgement. He surveyed us beforehand, sixteen of eighteen answered, and he built the session from our own responses, so the whole morning was about us. I’d recommend him to any leadership team working out what should stay human.”

Karina GovindjiDirector, Head of HR UK, Google

So thought-provoking and so well presented. It set up our board day perfectly.”

Sam KnightsChief Executive, Next 15 Group plc

I brought Rahim in to speak to the Luminary Community, a group of female leaders and high potentials working in HR and people. I wanted something that would make sense of AI for them without the hype and without the fear. Rahim started with the human rather than the technology, and that reframing was the thing. He made AI feel simple and made us feel capable, which is not a combination I have come across before. Our members left with something they could actually use.”

Azmina KaraFounder, Luminary

Rahim maps the exact capabilities we need to partner with machines without surrendering our authorship."

Karim LakhaniHarvard Business School, co-author of Competing in the Age of AI

He handled a demanding room and left them with something they could act on rather than only something to think about."

Stuart FosterHead of Coverage, UK Corporate Banking, Barclays

If you are thinking about what happens to leadership in the age of AI, and what we need beyond our tech and soft skills, then you need to read this book."

Reshma Aziz KhanFacilitator, UPEACE Centre for Executive Education; quoted the book on stage at Ars Electronica 2026

Formats

Three ways to work with me

Most people start with a keynote. Boards start with a session. Chief executives start with advice. The same argument also runs as a dinner, a fireside conversation, a roundtable, a webinar or a panel: every format.

Rahim Hirji on the main stage at a large conference — Keynotes

For conferences, offsites and all-hands. Three talks, built from the audience's own answers.

Rahim Hirji facilitating a small board session beside a screen — Board sessions

Briefings, away days and dinners for a board, ending in decisions written down.

Rahim Hirji at a meeting table with a laptop, listening — Advisory

Independent advice for a chief executive and the team, scoped and written.

In brief

Twenty years building the technology that changed how people work. Then seven years studying what it did to them. I helped build a piece of the shift before I studied it.

The book is for everyone, the talks for senior audiences, the advice for chief executives. The biggest story of our time is what AI does to human capability.

Everything here answers one question: where should AI act, and where must human judgement stay?

The research: what is happening, and how sure we can be
Drift versus Design: deciding where judgement belongs
SuperSkills: the capabilities people need to exercise it
Keynotes and advisory: how I help organisations apply it

It started with a dhow. My great-grandfather put his family on one from Gujarat to East Africa, with rumour for a map. Five generations later, the same decision sits in front of every leadership team I meet: move on purpose, or drift. Read the story

Rahim Hirji’s signature

The idea

Design, or drift.

Most organisations are handing judgement to AI without deciding to. Drift is what happens by default, one convenient shortcut at a time. Design is what you choose on purpose.

The deeper challenge is judgement allocation: deciding which humans decide what, and where.

Drift

Capability leaks out of the building.

New joiners prompt past the hard parts. Senior judgement stops being built, and no one chose it.

Design

You decide where humans stay.

At the start, the middle and the end of the work. Then you build the skills that make the choice pay off.

Rahim Hirji on stage, a slide behind him contrasting a drifting raft with a designed sailboat — Drift, or design. On stage.

Everyone says "keep a human in the loop." Few say which human, with which skills, at which point in the work. I work that out with leadership teams.

Those skills are the seven SuperSkills. They are the book, with the research underneath. Read the research

What should our board be asking about AI?Is deskilling real?How do juniors become senior?

A boat doesn't choose where it goes. The people in it do."

From SuperSkills

Advisory

The decisions AI puts on a chief executive’s desk, and an independent view of them.

I sell no software, take no vendor’s money and will not build anything, so nothing in the advice depends on what you decide. I have run, grown, bought and advised businesses with AI in them. Every engagement ends in something written that a board can hold you to.

Assignments are scoped, and most are five-figure. Boards start on the board advisory page; everyone else on advisory.

The argument, at length

Out now

SuperSkills

The argument in full: what AI does to your judgement, and the seven capabilities that protect it. Published by Kogan Page, part of Hachette UK. Translations under way; audiobook due in 2027.

The seven: Curiosity, Change Readiness, Big Picture Thinking, Empathetic Communication, Global Adaptability, Principled Innovation and Augmented Mindset.

Order the book

Chief executives read it and hand it to their teams. Bulk copies and branded editions for a leadership team or an event: ask.

The argument rests on published evidence, including the studies that cut against it, and the questions I cannot answer yet. The research

Enquire

What are you deciding?

A strategy to read, a board to brief, an audience to speak to. Every enquiry is read personally and answered within a working day.

Send an enquiry

Prefer to talk it through first? Book a 30-minute call

Taking on a handful of advisory relationships, and selected keynotes, for 2026 and 2027. Email rahim@thesuperskills.com

Planning an event? Send the date and who will be there.Send an enquiry Book a 30-minute call