Build local AI capability without losing alignment with headquarters
Enterprise AI priorities are set at headquarters. They arrive in the subsidiary as a policy, a tool list and a deadline.
What follows is familiar. The local team adopts what fits and quietly works around what does not. Headquarters sees compliance in the reporting and something different in the results. Neither side is wrong. The priorities were sound and the local constraints were real, and nobody was in a position to translate between them.
That translation is the work.
What usually goes wrong
The operating environment is different, and the policy did not account for it
Connectivity, data residency, the systems actually in use, what the local regulator expects, which vendors are genuinely available. A framework written for the parent market will meet conditions it was not designed for.
Local capability is assumed rather than built
A subsidiary is expected to execute an AI programme without the specialists to run it, and hiring for that skill locally is competitive and slow.
Governance is imported, not adopted
Controls designed at headquarters get signed off locally and applied selectively, because nobody explained what they are for. What headquarters reads as compliance is often accommodation.
Nobody owns the gap
The regional lead is accountable for results, the group function is accountable for the framework, and the space between them belongs to no one.
If you recognise your organisation in two or more of these, that is worth a conversation before the next programme cycle. Find a time to talk.
What I do
Translate group priorities into local execution
Work through what the enterprise AI strategy means in this operating environment, what transfers directly, what needs adapting, and what genuinely does not apply. In both directions, so headquarters understands the constraint rather than only hearing the outcome.
Leadership workshops
With the local executive team, and where useful with group counterparts in the room. The same decisions I put to any board: where AI deserves investment, who owns an AI-assisted decision, what has to be governed before it scales. Held in the local context rather than the group one.
Capability building
Developing the people who will run this after I leave, so the subsidiary is not dependent on group resources or on me.
Governance that will actually be used
Adapting group frameworks so they hold locally, and are understood well enough to be followed when nobody is checking.
Partner mobilisation
Identifying and assessing local technology partners, vendors and institutions, and establishing how they are governed once engaged.
Implementation support
Working alongside the local team through delivery, including the ownership, documentation and adoption support that keep a system running after handover.
Why me
Twenty years leading transformation for enterprise and public-sector clients in Europe, and deep engagement with the African technology ecosystem.
I founded Nyamga, a platform connecting vetted African technology professionals with client projects, and AI4Africa Ignition, a pan-African platform whose inaugural conference in Douala brought together more than 300 participants from five countries across twelve panels and six workshops. I chair the Global South chapter of Women in AI Governance and have spoken on AI ethics, data sovereignty and governance enforcement for emerging markets at AIFOD at the United Nations in Vienna.
That combination is uncommon. Most advisors credible with a European headquarters have no operational depth in African markets. Most with local depth have not sat in the group governance conversation. The work requires both, and it requires being trusted on both sides.
Delivered in English, French or German.
Start with a conversation.
Whether you are at headquarters trying to understand why a programme is not landing, or leading locally and trying to make a group framework work in your environment, the first conversation is the same.