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

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, weekly since 2017

The evidence

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 60 countries · Board seats at EtonX, TeacherMatic, Whitefox and the Aga Khan Education Board · BBC, The New York Observer, The European Business Review

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 →

Years of fieldwork

200+

Organisations, 30+ countries

537

Studies checked

1245

Questions mapped

Author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page). Founded EtonX, acquired by Eton College. Led international growth at Quizlet across more than 60 countries. Where the evidence contradicts the argument, it stays published.

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 rooms, the advice for chief executives. The biggest story of our time is
what AI does to human capability.

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

The evidence underneath

Everything here is checkable. Including where it disagrees with me.

537 studies, each with what it does not support. 1245 questions, with the ones I cannot answer yet left visible. Where the evidence contradicts the argument, it stays published. All the research →

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.

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.

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.

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 · 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 is in the room. 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 · 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

“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

Enquire

Tell me what you are deciding.

A strategy to read, a board to brief, a room to speak to. Every enquiry is read personally. Expect a reply within 24 hours.

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. · rahim@thesuperskills.com

Planning an event? Tell me the room and the date.Send an enquiry Book a 30-minute call