I help mid-market banks, insurers, and asset managers choose the right use case, scope the pilot, and build the governance and execution path around it.
If the next step is already clear, contact me about a pilot. If you want the shortest route to a useful decision, start with the three pieces below.
Start here: AI business case for a CFO, AI-ready data for financial institutions, and why bank AI pilots stall.
The strongest entry point is usually not another strategy deck. It is a scoped pilot with the right use case, the right controls, and a clean path from learning to production.
There are too many possible use cases, too many vendors, and too much pressure to do something. The first move is to pick a valuable, governable pilot and define what success actually means.
A pilot without ownership, data access, risk review, adoption planning, and success criteria becomes a demo. The setup work determines whether it can become a real operating capability.
A useful pilot should not surprise risk, technology, operations, or executive sponsors later. It should be designed with those constraints visible from the beginning.
If you want to start with a focused AI pilot, contact me. I can usually tell you quickly whether the first move should be pilot setup, a readiness check, or hands-on program leadership.
Before I started this practice, I spent two decades leading large-scale programs at Citi, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and BNY Mellon — across retail, commercial, investment banking, and asset management. I've run multi-team programs through M&A integrations, served as Chief of Staff to C-suite executives, and navigated the kind of cross-functional dysfunction that only large regulated institutions can produce.
That background matters because the people I'm now helping are dealing with the same kind of complexity I spent twenty years inside. I'm not learning the regulatory environment from a McKinsey deck. I lived it.
Cashlytica.com is my flagship live case study. I built it and I operate it, so every recommendation I make has to survive a real product, a real site, and real operating constraints — not a theoretical slide deck.
See the proofCashlytica is the operating context I use to keep my thinking grounded in product, routing, copy, and governance decisions that have to work in public.
It shows how I approach institutional software when there is no room for drift: keep the product coherent, remove clutter, and make the system understandable to real users.
I do not have a stack of outside client logos to wave around. I have one live system I built, maintain, and learn from — and I say that plainly.
A focused entry engagement to choose the use case, define success, align stakeholders, map the controls, and set up the pilot so it can teach the institution something useful — not just produce a demo.
See pilot setup detailsFor when a pilot or vendor effort has already drifted. I diagnose the blocker, realign the work, and help move it toward a usable operating milestone.
See rescue detailsEmbedded part-time leadership for institutions that need senior judgment running their AI program but aren't ready to hire a full-time Chief AI Officer. I run the steering committee, manage vendors, navigate governance, and report to executive sponsors.
See fractional lead detailsThe highest-value reads are the ones tied to the queries already getting impressions: business case, data readiness, and stalled pilot recovery.
The CFO asked what the program had cost so far. The number was $800,000. Nobody mentioned the three data scientists who had quit, the vendor contract 60 days from termination, or the fact that the board had stopped asking about AI.
Read articleMRM sent back thirty-seven questions. The team spent three months writing answers. MRM came back with twenty more. The path through this isn't more documentation — it's a different conversation, started at a different time.
Read articleWant to turn one of these ideas into a focused pilot? Contact me.
The first conversation is free. Tell me the use case you are considering, where the pressure is coming from, and what would make the pilot worth doing.
Contact me about a pilot