Elephants in the Boardroom

In September 2026, AI's builders started publicly warning that the technology could destroy us - while building faster than ever. Dean and Graeme think everyone is asking the wrong question.

When a senior Anthropic researcher resigned warning of AI Armageddon, and the company's CEO called for "pacing the frontier," the world fixated on one question: how fast should we run the AI race? ⁠Dean van Leeuwen⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠Graeme Codrington think that's the wrong question entirely. The right one is: where exactly are we racing to?

This host-only episode cuts through the hype to ask what nobody in the mainstream AI debate seems to be asking. Graeme unpacks what large language models actually are - and why the real danger isn't autonomous AI, but humans removing guardrails and then claiming they couldn't stop it. Dean revisits the Waymo standoff that went viral to make the case for humans in the lead, not just in the loop. And together they argue that AI should stand not for Artificial Intelligence but for Advancing Intelligence - and that the industry desperately needs its President Kennedy moment: a clear end game for what all of this should make humanity capable of.

You’ll take away:

• Define your AI end game before you choose your tools

• Humans in the lead means responsibility, not just oversight

• AI stands for Advancing Intelligence - machines and humans together, not machines instead of humans

This episode explores:

Intelligent Advances - one of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.

• The seven grey elephants framework → ⁠tomorrowtoday.consulting/greyelephantsintroduction
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The supply chains that gave you thirty years of competitive advantage are now your greatest vulnerability. So what do you build instead?

From the humanoid robot games in Beijing as a signal of shifting industrial capability to using Stewart Brand’s Pace Layers model to explain why the world is catching leaders off guard, ⁠Dean van Leeuwen⁠ and ⁠Graeme Codrington explore how the slow-moving parts of the system - infrastructure, governance, the natural environment - are now changing as fast as fashion.

This month's guest is Paul Noel, chairman of Achilles US & Canada, with an on-the-ground view of where US businesses are most exposed right now and the question most organisations aren’t asking: not how do we optimise our supply chains, but how do we make them resilient enough to survive a world where the underlying assumptions - frictionless transport, stable geopolitics, low tariffs - have disappeared.

Paul also explains why vertical integration is making a quiet comeback, how data centres have become a perfect microcosm of modern supply chain risk, and the three questions he’d ask any CEO to find out whether their supply chain is genuinely resilient - starting with: do you know your head of procurement’s name?

You’ll take away:

• Efficiency optimisation has become fragility - the model needs rebuilding around resilience

• Your biggest blind spots are where you stopped looking - beyond tier one

• Procurement must be a board-level conversation before it becomes a crisis

This episode explores:

The Big Squeeze, Angry Planet, and Multipolarity - three of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.

The Elephant You Could Name:

When was the last time your organisation retired someone whose wisdom you couldn’t afford to lose?

🔗 Resources mentioned:

Stewart Brand’s Pace Layers model - from The Clock of the Long Now (1999)

• Toyota just-in-time supply methodology - and its limits under disruption

• Boeing supply chain case study - the cost of over-optimisation

• Straits of Hormuz, Malacca, Taiwan, Dover, Bosphorus - global shipping lane data (2025)

• Humanoid robot games, Beijing - Robot Olympic Games 2026

• The seven grey elephants framework → tomorrowtoday.consulting/greyelephantsintroduction
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Faisal Abdalla became CEO of a 27-country business, stepped down in his early seventies - and took the HR job. What happens when experience refuses to expire?

Dean van Leeuwen and Graeme Codrington open this month’s episode with the grey elephants on their radar they see stampeding: the reshaping of global supply chains from efficiency to strategic dependency; 17 countries with simultaneous wildfires; China’s one-child policy time bomb; and OpenAI’s models autonomously hacking Hugging Face - raising questions about whether AI singularity has already quietly arrived.

Our guest this month is Faisal Abdalla - former Vice President of ALJ Saudi Arabia Motors, the role now known as CEO. Now he is the Chief HR and Kaizen Officer, and author of Emonomics - The Economics of Positive Emotions. With 50 years of leadership across 27 countries, Faisal makes a quietly radical argument: the human being is always the most important driver of any organisation. And love - in the fullest sense of the word - is the practical foundation of effective leadership.

You’ll take away:

• Lead through informal power - the kind that can’t be granted or taken away

• Experience is a strategic asset - the wisdom that leaves with every forced retirement is irreplaceable

• HR leadership requires a different patience - culture change takes years; the leaders who understand this build institutions

This episode explores: Ageing Populations and Intelligent Advances - two of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.

The Elephant you could name: When was the last time your organisation retired someone whose wisdom you couldn’t afford to lose?

🔗 Resources mentioned·

· Emonomics: The Economics of Positive Emotions - forthcoming book by Faisal Abdalla

· Abdul Latif Jameel (ALJ) - global family business founded in Saudi Arabia, operating in 27+ countries (alj.com)

· The Jameel Principles - values framework at the heart of ALJ, centred on respect, empathy, and giving back

· Kaizen - Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, embedded in ALJ through its Toyota origins

· Hugging Face - open-source AI platform; OpenAI models reportedly gained unauthorised access (huggingface.co)

· AI Singularity - Sam Altman’s claim that the point of indistinguishable human/machine intelligence may already have arrived

· Ray Kurzweil - futurist who predicted singularity circa 2045

· ELIZA Emulator (elizaemulator.com)

· China’s one-child policy - and its second/third-order demographic consequences

· The seven grey elephants framework → tomorrowtoday.consulting/greyelephantsintroduction

Sponsored by Achilles - building anti-fragile, transparent supply chains. achilles.com
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The real AI question isn't about automation - it's whether we're designing technology to advance human capability or quietly engineer it out.
In this episode, Dean van Leeuwen and Graeme Codrington ask the question most boardrooms aren't asking: are we advancing intelligence, or just advancing the artificial?
Hear what happened when one of Nashville's Waymo driverless taxis ends up in a standoff with a road foreman that the algorithm can't understand, and why the Pope's new encyclical on AI - mirrors its 130-year-old predecessor from the height of the Industrial Revolution.
You'll take away:
• Demand "humans in the lead" not just "humans in the loop" - genuine responsibility for AI outcomes
• Reframe AI as advancing intelligence - the language you use shapes the choices you make
• Build the guardrails now - seatbelts weren't mandated until the 1980s; AI's side effects are already visible
🔗 Resources mentioned
Magnificat Humanitatis - Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on AI → https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html#The_res_novae_of_our_time
Rerum Novarum - Pope Leo XIII (1891) → https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html
The seven grey elephants framework → https://tomorrowtoday.consulting/greyelephantsintroduction
This episode explores: Intelligent Advances - one of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.
The Elephant You Could Name: Are you using AI to make your people more capable, or more replaceable?
Full shownotes, references and white papers: https://www.tomorrowtoday.consulting/podcast#episode-17
Sponsored by Achilles - building anti-fragile, transparent supply chains. achilles.com
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Why the most experienced workers in your organisation are the ones most likely to be filtered out - and what to do about it.
Most organisations are facing talent shortages, productivity problems, and skills gaps - and overlooking one of the most capable parts of the labour market: people in midlife and beyond. In this episode, Dean van Leeuwen and Graeme Codrington are joined by Lucy Standing (founder of Brave Starts and author of Age Against the Machine) and Lynda Smith (CEO of 50 Plus Skills) to name the elephant: the ageing workforce is not a problem to be managed - it's a competitive advantage waiting to be unlocked. The conversation ranges from the collapse of the pension model to the four career archetypes that matter more than any job description, and from the science of crystallised intelligence to the concept of "refirement" - the positive reinvention of purpose and work in the gift season between 50 and 75.
You'll take away:
• Ask before you assume - survey your own workforce first, it costs nothing
• Design for re-entry - open your doors to shadowing, internships, and career conversations at every stage
• Reframe age as an asset - crystallised intelligence, resilience, and legacy-making improve with age and these are the factors that actually predict performance
Chapters:

00:00 - Lucy Standing on why "follow your passion" is bad career advice for most people

01:11 - Welcome and context: Dean on Standard Chartered's "low-value human capital" moment

02:13 - AI as replacement engine vs. augmentation engine

05:31 - Sponsor: Achilles

05:31 - Guest introductions: Lucy Standing and Lynda Smith

06:24 - The demographic problem: how retirement was designed for a world where people died at 66

13:55 - The pension time bomb: from 7 adults per pensioner to 2 by 2050

10:15 - The South African lens: Lynda on the "missing middle" and the post-apartheid youth bias

17:36 - The productivity-ageism connection: what organisations miss when they filter out over-50s

27:54 - Four motivation archetypes: strive, pivot, recalibrate, or complete change

31:53 - Age Against the Machine: the three "machines" holding people back

38:32 - Refirement: Lynda on identity, ikigai, and the gift season

51:31 - Practical shifts: what a CEO or HR director should do tomorrow

54:41 - Close: how to connect with Lucy and Lynda

This episode explores: Ageing Populations and Intelligent Advances - two of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.
The Elephant you could name: Who in your organisation is within five years of the retirement line and quietly underused? Have the conversation this week.
Full shownotes, references and white papers: https://www.tomorrowtoday.consulting/podcast#episode-17
Sponsored by Achilles - building anti-fragile, transparent supply chains. achilles.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices