Decisions expire fasterthan they used to.
AI does not change who decides. It changes the assumptions underneath the decision, the value creation logic, the margin dynamics, and how long a decision stays valid before it needs revisiting.
Most boards talk about AI. Few lead it.
Pilots run and budgets get approved, while the questions that decide the outcome stay unasked. Whether the business model still holds. Whether capital is going to the right places. How long today's assumptions have left.
A different voice at the table
Thomas Zimmerer
Non-Executive Director, Supervisory and Advisory Board Member
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No agency behind me.
No team, so no incentive to find more work than exists.
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I have held the seat myself.
Executive board mandates in international industrial groups, and a supervisory board seat today. Judgment from having decided, not from having studied executives who decide.
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One person, start to finish.
The same person from the first conversation to the last. No handover, no diluted memory.
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No hidden agenda.
I do not build it. I supervise what gets built, so it delivers what the board decided. There is no delivery organization behind me to sell you and no stake in any vendor.
AI and digital play out on two distinct fields. Boards have to govern both.
Efficiency and competitiveness
Whether the right initiatives are being chosen, whether capital is flowing where it strengthens the operation, and whether the moves add up to a coherent picture.
Business and operating model
AI rewrites pricing logic, margin structures and the stability of competitive advantage. Whether the assumptions behind the strategy still hold.
The work takes three shapes.
A single closed session with a board or executive team. A defined diagnostic period ending in a strategic roadmap. Or continuous sparring once that foundation is set. Which one fits is a conversation, not a selection.
Board mandates are considered where the mandate matches the board's situation.
Governance structures differ by country. The work does not.
I sit with supervisory boards, advisory boards and boards of directors, with executive and management boards, and with individual executives driving an AI agenda in their own area of responsibility.
Industrial enterprises in the mid to upper mid market, across Europe, the GCC and beyond.
An initial exchange.
Write, and I will suggest a time.