Directing in the Age of AI | Yvonne Wassenaar & Alla Whitston

(00:00) Intro and about to the inaugural Boardroom Governance Summit (02:45) About Ivonne Wassenaar, and Alla Whitston from MUFG (04:51) AI and Board Oversight: what directors should be asking as AI moves from experimentation into core business strategy (05:59) Looking Beyond Today’s AI: why boards need outside perspectives on startups, venture investment, and where the technology may be heading next. (06:58) Building Optionality: avoiding long-term technology lock-in while models, infrastructure, and token economics are changing rapidly (07:18) AI and Cybersecurity: how AI is accelerating attacks and why boards should be conducting cyber tabletop exercises with management (08:39) Data Governance and AI: protecting company and customer data and preventing sensitive information from being used to train outside models (10:21) AI Regulation: why stronger and more consistent regulatory guardrails may actually help companies manage risk (13:24) What Directors Should Ask the CIO: data architecture, AI infrastructure, controls, third-party assessments, and protecting the company’s “crown jewels” (16:34) The AI Venture Boom (the "psychotic edge"): why investors acknowledge they may be overpaying but still fear missing the eventual winners (18:20) Separating AI Hype from Durable Businesses: customer problems, competitive moats, proprietary data, gross margins, and sustainable unit economics (19:50) Global AI Competition: U.S., Chinese, European, and Japanese models and the importance of avoiding dependence on any single provider (23:11) AI and the Workforce: how AI is changing engineering, sales, marketing, and other functions inside companies (24:40) Headcount Dollars vs. Token Dollars: how companies are reallocating budgets as AI becomes part of everyday operations (26:15) Citizen Development: why AI is democratizing software development and allowing business users to build their own tools and agents (28:48) How Boards Should Think About AI Budgets: experimentation, large strategic bets, acquisitions, and holding management accountable to the original business case. "The sure path to death is to not do AI" (32:39) Recommendation to boards: "[W]hen you think about AI, think about not necessarily your straight ROI case or your cost case. Think about what am I trying to achieve in the next six to 12 months? And that's literally as far as you can see, and it's probably closer to six." When to Shut Down AI Projects: why boards need discipline around stopping experiments that are not producing results. (33:30) Beyond Productivity: moving from cost savings and efficiency to true value realization through faster decisions, autonomy, and new business opportunities Ivonne Wassenaar is a technology executive, advisor, and experienced board director whose career spans software, strategy consulting, and CEO roles. She currently serves on boards across public, private equity, and venture-backed companies. Alla Whitston is CIO for MUFG Americas and brings more than three decades of experience leading technology in the financial services industry. Recorded at the inaugural Boardroom Governance Summit in Healdsburg, California, on August 27, 2026. You can follow Evan on social media at: Website: boardroom-governance.com X: @evanepstein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoardroomGovernance __ To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License