Every CEO is being asked to make decisions about AI before there is a reliable playbook for what comes next.
Where to invest. How to create business value. Which risks to take. What to automate. And what should remain fundamentally human.
That makes experience a more complicated asset. The past may offer fewer obvious answers, but the judgment built through years of operating across different environments may become even more valuable.
Few executives embody that challenge better than Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI.
Her career has taken her from metallurgy and mining in Ghana to Goldman Sachs, Salesforce, Block, Nextdoor and now OpenAI. She describes it as a series of “zigs and zags,” but each move gave her another reference point for navigating unfamiliar problems and situations.
Today, she is applying that experience inside a company whose economics and capabilities are evolving in real time, while businesses everywhere are being forced to rethink software, talent, cybersecurity and the architecture of work.
In this episode of Grey Matter, Sarah joins Consello Founder, Chairman and CEO Declan Kelly to discuss how leaders make decisions when precedent becomes less reliable, how AI is already creating real business value, and why the ability to distinguish what should change from what should endure may become one of the most important advantages experience can provide.
In this episode, Sarah addresses:
- How CEOs should make decisions about AI when there is no reliable playbook for what comes next
- Why judgment becomes more valuable as intelligence becomes more abundant
- How AI is already translating into real business value, from productivity gains to revenue growth and new operating models
- Why the faster an organization moves, the more important it becomes to know what should endure
- How a career of “zigs and zags” built the pattern recognition she now relies on at OpenAI
About Consello
Consello is an Advisory and Investing Platform with offices in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Dublin, Belfast, London, Brussels and Abu Dhabi.
Consello’s distinct advisory practices provide the complete strategic counsel today’s leaders need to grow and transform their organizations. Consello’s advisory expertise spans Corporate Advisory; M&A; Management Consulting; Talent; and Sports and Entertainment. Dedicated teams operate in each practice, led by a leadership group with deep operational experience across industries, business growth stages and market cycles and with an expansive set of global corporate relationships.
Consello’s investment business, Consello Capital, identifies high-potential mid-market companies and invests capital and expertise to transform their growth.
About Grey Matter Host Declan Kelly
Declan Kelly is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Consello, one of the world's most influential boutique advisory firms. A trusted advisor to dozens of CEOs leading the world's top companies, Mr. Kelly has built or run four global consulting companies over the last three decades prior to founding Consello. Mr. Kelly also served in government as US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland during the Obama administration.
