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

Work with me

Work
With Me

Advisory, governance, and Bast partnerships for leaders moving from AI ambition to auditable deployment.

Start the fit check → Full CV

AI moved from experiment to infrastructure before most companies built the controls.

The result is a widening gap between what AI can produce and what leaders can trace, inspect, govern, and defend. I help boards and executive teams close that gap before it becomes operational, regulatory, or reputational risk.

How the work unfolds

Advisory is the front door. When shared priorities emerge, the relationship can deepen into a structured Bast partnership — without forcing every organization into the same shape. Three stages, each standing on its own.

Stage 01 · Advise
Advisory Retainer

Standing access

Standing access shaped around what the moment needs: a board briefing, a strategy workshop, a vendor gut-check, or training for your team. Here is what the work delivers.

One AI intent, across the whole team
Your leadership aligned on a single, well-articulated AI intent that maps to the business opportunity. Ask five executives today what the AI strategy is and count the answers. This work ends with one.
Risk trade-offs, made explicit
A tool-by-tool read of which AI is worth using where, weighed against your actual risk tolerance. A decision tool leadership uses, not a policy binder.
Contract and vendor protection
AI vendor contracts reviewed before signature, so a vendor's model failure never becomes your indemnity. This already kept one of my clients from carrying liability for software it didn't build.
A standing technical read
An advisor who tracks the AI landscape continuously and translates what changed into what it means for you — before your vendors do.
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 — while 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 — can its answers be traced, explained, and defended? 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 — grounded only in board-approved sources, every answer traceable 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.

Stage 02 · Shape
Bast Sponsor Customer

Turn your expertise into models that show their work

When advisory surfaces a problem worth solving, a Sponsor Customer partnership turns your institutional knowledge into reusable, explainable models — every answer traceable 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.
Stage 03 · Deploy
Deploy & beyond

Put it into operation

Bast goes live in your environment, grounded only in sources you approve, every answer traceable to where it came from. When the fit is bigger, the conversation turns to a strategic partnership or investment.

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

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.

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