AI Isn’t an IT Upgrade. It’s a Leadership Challenge.
Executive training and strategic advisory for leaders who need to govern an agent workforce, not write Python.
You don’t need to understand transformer architecture. You need to know which AI investments will actually move your business forward, which ones will waste six months and a budget cycle, and how to lead a team through the transition.
That’s what this program covers. Not theory. Not vendor demos. Practical executive education built on 27 years of digital transformation work across manufacturing, professional services, agencies, luxury goods, and health and wellness.
We’ve watched companies stall because leadership couldn’t distinguish between a genuine AI opportunity and a well-marketed demo. We’ve helped others move from “we should do something with AI” to funded roadmaps with clear ROI timelines. The difference is almost always executive understanding, not technical capability.
What We Cover
Vision & Strategy
Turning AI mandates into actual visions. Roadmap planning. Digital transformation sequencing. We help you define what AI means for your specific business and build the strategic case that gets budget, board support, and team buy-in.
The Agentic Shift
The shift from “people doing tasks with software tools” to “people managing AI agents that do the tasks” is already happening. We help leadership understand what this looks like operationally and how to transition staff without losing institutional knowledge.
Technical Truths, Simplified
How LLMs actually work. What RAG does and when fine-tuning (LARA) makes more sense. What vector stores are and why they matter for your data. Explained for business value, not developer points. You’ll leave with enough understanding to evaluate vendor claims and make informed build-vs-buy decisions.
Governance & Risk
AI readiness assessment. Compliance frameworks. Why projects fail and the patterns that predict it. We cover the governance layer that most implementations skip, then wonder why adoption stalls. This includes data privacy, responsible AI use, and building the organizational structures that keep AI systems accountable.
How We Work With You
- Executive Workshops: Half-day or full-day sessions for leadership teams. Covers all four areas above, customized to your industry and current AI maturity. You leave with a prioritized list of opportunities, a clear understanding of what’s real vs. hype, and a framework for evaluating AI investments going forward.
- 1:1 Advisory: Ongoing sessions with Sebastian Chedal, tailored to your strategic questions as they come up. Good for executives mid-implementation who need a sounding board with deep AI and transformation experience. Not a retainer for technical work. A thinking partnership.
- Fractional CTO (fCTO): For organizations that need sustained AI leadership without a full-time hire. Sebastian embeds with your team on a part-time basis to guide strategy, evaluate technical decisions, manage vendor relationships, and build internal AI capability. Typical engagements run 2-4 days per month.
Who This Is For
This program works best for executives and leadership teams at companies between $10M and $250M who know AI matters but haven’t found the right entry point.
Manufacturing leaders dealing with workforce transitions and knowledge retention. Agency principals figuring out how AI changes their service delivery model. Professional services firms evaluating automation of high-value knowledge work. Health and wellness organizations navigating AI in regulated environments.
You don’t need technical background. You need strategic clarity, and the confidence to make decisions about AI investments that will shape the next five years of your business.
Specific Topics
- AI Change Management and organizational readiness — how to lead teams through adoption without killing motivation. Read our complete framework.
- Shifting from “programmers” to “agentic orchestrators” — what the transition actually looks like for non-technical teams and how to manage it without losing institutional knowledge.
- Bottom-line impact — where AI reduces costs today (not theoretically) and how to identify new revenue opportunities your competitors haven’t seen yet.
- “What is AI, really?” — LLMs, RAG, vectors, fine-tuning explained for executives who need to make investment decisions, not build models.
- AI governance and readiness — compliance, risk assessment, and the organizational structures that prevent the high failure rates plaguing most AI initiatives.
- Why AI projects fail — and the strategic prioritization framework that helps you pick the right projects first.
From the Founder
Sebastian regularly shares practical AI insights through video and speaking engagements. Real conversations about what works, what doesn’t, and what leadership teams actually need to know.
Fountain City has been very good at providing the desired results without a lot of hand-holding.
They always have our best interests at heart and come to the table with excellent suggestions based on their experience.
Fountain City offers an excellent personal touch and is very approachable while being very professional still.
Fountain City’s results, honesty and attention to detail stand out. They’re very realistic as well.
I’m always confident they’ll take the lead to ensure that the project runs smoothly and in the manner that I expected.
Results and relationships matter to this team, and it makes for a pleasant and productive experience.
