Beth Rudden at SXSW EDU in blue glasses and her Van Gogh almond-blossom scarf, beside a copy of AI for the Rest of Us.
← Beth Rudden

Founder-led AI advisory

Work
With Me

Premium, direct access for leaders making AI decisions they have to explain, govern, and defend.

Bast is focused on healthcare. That is where we are building the product, concentrating the company, and choosing the institutions we can serve deeply.

I reserve limited, premium advisory capacity for executives and boards in other high-integrity industries. You get a trusted translator between technical reality and the boardroom—without turning Bast into a general-purpose consultancy.

Bast Advisory is the front door. It exposes the real problem, earns institutional trust, and determines whether a Bast deployment is warranted—and whether the organization and Bast are the right fit for one another. If the answer is no, the advisory still stands on its own.

Bast Advisory Retainer

The Executive AI Sounding Board

Direct, high-touch access for CEOs and boards navigating Q3/Q4 results and strategic planning. I serve as your executive secret weapon. I translate technical noise into board clarity and evaluate vendor claims before you sign.

Board-ready strategy on one page
Clear alignment across your entire executive team. We eliminate vendor confusion and map your AI strategy, agentic readiness, and risk profile onto a single, clear page before your next board meeting.
A repeatable build-vs-buy scorecard
Stop wasting capital on pilot projects that don't scale. Get an objective, outcome-focused framework for every tech decision, vendor evaluation, and tool purchase.
Frontline care team augmentation
AI that actually elevates human capability. We focus on practical, traceable implementations that reduce administrative friction for your people.

Limited capacity: to ensure deep, high-touch focus for every client, Stage 01 advisory is strictly capped at 3 executive retainer seats total.

Board & Governance

The AI-enabled board

Every board is asked two questions at once. How do we govern AI? And how do we use it ourselves? Most get advice on the first and nothing on the second. Meanwhile, the directors reviewing the AI strategy still read 300-page board books the night before.

Readiness
Where the board and management actually stand. A glass-box audit of any AI already in use. You get transparency, which protects the organization against risk and liability. Closes with an AI Intent Charter: what you use AI to do, why, and the explicit non-goals.
Governance
The standing machinery of oversight: the questions directors ask management, AI risk reviewed at the fiduciary level, a risk-and-tradeoff scorecard, and a vendor review protocol that survives personnel changes.
Enablement
A governed, explainable AI instance for the board's own work: briefings, scenario questions, compliance lookups. It draws only on board-approved sources. Every answer traces back to the page it came from.
Not a board that talks about AI. A board that models it.
Speaking & Executive Education

Keynotes, briefings, and cohorts

Executive briefings that leave your C-suite answering three questions in the same words: where AI puts you at risk, where it gives you an edge, and what you're changing versus installing. Keynotes on explainable AI, agentic systems, and the societal gap. Leadership cohorts that train your people on systems where every answer has a receipt.

Speaking is selective. The CEO chair comes first, so I take only engagements that justify stepping away from the company. Tell me the date and the ask.

Bast Sponsor Customer

Turn your expertise into models that show their work

When advisory surfaces a healthcare problem worth solving—and proves the institution is ready—a Sponsor Customer partnership turns institutional knowledge into reusable, explainable models. Every answer traces back to the page it came from. Two are already in operation.

Maryville University
$1.2M saved in the first semester and a 12% drop in nursing-student attrition, with a support path the university can explain and defend.
Offline-ready medical AI
Featured as the lead story on DVC's blog. A pipeline where every answer traces back through its context, source page, and document version.
Deploy & beyond

Put it into operation

For the right healthcare client, Bast goes live in your environment, grounded only in sources you approve, every answer traceable to where it came from. By this stage, the problem, boundaries, readiness, and mutual fit are already understood.

Most relationships start at Stage 01. None are required to leave it.

I built AI at the scale most boards only worry about: Chief Data Officer of IBM's $34B services division, a $450M AI P&L grown 20% in six months, IBM Distinguished Engineer, 30+ patents and publications, and an early leader in trustworthy AI. I trained as an archaeologist, so I read where a system came from and how it reached its answer. You want someone who has shipped AI at scale and will tell you the truth about yours.

Tell me what you're facing.

The first conversation is a straight read on where you stand and whether I'm the right person for it.

Full CV  ·  Selected engagements. Details and availability on request.