How the evening runs
Before the starters. A short kickoff with a hypothesis, so the table has something to agree or disagree with from the first minute. Usually in a private dining room in a hotel or a good restaurant, in London or wherever the hosts are.
Through the main course. The discussion stays on AI: who is making the decisions, and what is changing in how the organisation is structured.
After the main. It moves to the implications for the future and becomes more free-wheeling. I keep it on the subject for as long as the subject needs, and let it go when the table is ready to talk about other things. The host leads how it ends: usually it stays free-wheeling, and some hosts want formal actions instead.
Slides or none. The evening is shaped around the host. Some want a few slides, some want none, and some want only the discussion.
Questions that open the table
Everyone has an opinion on AI, and on which tool is best and why. It is harder to ask people to think about AI taking their judgement, so I often start somewhere closer to home.
Who here is agentic? Who has agents working for them right now? Not many do yet. The ones who have are happy to talk about it, and the rest of the table learns what is possible.
What is your best use of AI in your private life? Someone always describes planning a holiday with an AI itinerary, and the table ends up arguing about whether serendipity still matters.
From there it moves to work, where some people are wary of changing tools, some are stuck with one tool in one part of their job, and the real question is which decisions nobody has looked at. For an executive team: which decision should a machine never make, and who would stop it if one started? What has AI already decided here that nobody in this room approved?
For HR and people leaders
A chief people officer with the HR leadership team, or an HR network bringing its members together, gets the same evening with its own questions. If the entry-level work has gone to the machines, where will our next managers learn the job? Are we promoting people on work that AI did for them? Who is accountable when a model shapes a hiring or performance decision?
The research many of these tables start from is the CHRO’s guide to AI. For a conference rather than a dinner, see HR audiences.
Who hosts one
A chief executive with the executive team.
A host or curator bringing together senior leaders from different organisations, where the business of the evening matters as much as the discussion.
A chief people officer or an HR network.
A firm hosting its clients. See client events.
How it differs from a board dinner
A board dinner is about oversight: what the board should be able to see and ask. A leadership dinner is about operation and what comes next: who owns each decision, what has already been handed over, and where the organisation is heading. Many teams follow it with Rules Before Tools, a day that turns the dinner’s argument into written rules.
The three keynotes, and which one fits
Keynotes run 30 to 90 minutes, in person or virtual. A 30-minute main-stage version of each talk is available for conferences, and the full talk runs 45 to 60 minutes. The sector examples are chosen for each audience, around the same argument. All three, with the showreel, are at keynotes, and the programme copy is at the speaker pack.
Drift versus Design
Drift versus Design: why most organisations hand their judgement to AI without deciding to, and how to design your way through instead.
Most organisations are adopting AI by drift: a thousand reasonable decisions that add up to judgement nobody chose to give away. Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills, shows leaders which mode they are running, where AI sharpens judgement and where it weakens it, and hands them the controls.
We Are Superheroes
We Are Superheroes: AI is the suit. The human decides.
AI makes everyone faster, stronger and more capable. It does not decide; people do. Through a family story across four generations and three continents, Rahim Hirji hands the audience the seven human skills that grow more valuable as the tools spread. It is a talk about people first and technology second.
WTH (What the Human)
WTH (What the Human): a live test of a leadership team's own judgement.
Most leadership teams have never seen their own judgement on AI tested. In three acts, Rahim Hirji shows a leadership team what AI is changing in how organisations run, then ends with a live test of the team's own judgement, live and unrehearsed. The answers are the team's own.
