- Where
- In-person,
Queenstown - When
- 5–6 August 2026
or
16–17 September 2026 - What
- Small senior cohort
(limit 20 places) - Cost
- $5,000 + GST
AI is outpacing how organisations make decisions
Across sectors, senior leaders have identified a gap: organisations have AI activity, but lack the governance structures to support clear accountability and decision-making at board and executive level.
The Otago Business School has developed the AI Residency to bridge this gap. It is the first leadership-focused AI governance intensive in New Zealand designed for board-level and executive accountability.
-
World class
Developed by the globally-recognised Otago Business School
-
Research‑led
Informed by current research, not hype or vendor roadmaps
-
Field‑tested
Refined through real, cross-sector organisational context
-
Real tools
Leave with structures and frameworks you can use right away
Ready to join the next AI Residency cohort?
Jump to registration detailsWho should attend?
The AI Leadership Residency is for leaders with organisational accountability – those who approve major initiatives, shape governance, and carry the downside when things go wrong.
Senior leaders
You have responsibility for organisational direction and risk.
Your role includes approving major initiatives, setting strategic direction, and carrying accountability when things go wrong. You're answerable to a board, regulator, or ownership group.
Leaders shaping governance
You set policy, define operating models, or direct strategic investment.
You're responsible for how decisions get made, how work flows, and where the organisation allocates attention and resources. You design the systems others operate within.
Executives and directors
You are accountable for AI‑related decisions or outcomes.
You sign off on AI initiatives, are answerable for AI risk and performance, and need structures to support judgment under uncertainty.
About the programme
Artificial intelligence is not just a technology challenge, it is a leadership, governance and decision-making imperative.
The AI Leadership Residency is designed for senior leaders who need to lead organisational adoption of AI with confidence and accountability. Rather than focusing on tools, the programme addresses the critical executive questions: where AI creates value, how risks are governed, and who holds decision rights.
At its core, the Residency builds judgement under uncertainty – equipping leaders to make informed, responsible decisions in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Programme content covers five domains:
- AI literacy for leaders
How AI systems work, fail, and create risk. - Governance, risk, and ethics
Oversight, assurance, and regulatory exposure. - Strategic value and decision-making
Where AI creates genuine organisational value. - Leadership and organisational impact
Roles, workflows, and accountability. - Applied executive practice
Case-based discussion and hands-on scenarios.
In-person intensive
The AI Residency is a structured intensive with academic grounding and practical focus. It's closer to an executive residency than a course or a consulting project.
The in-person, cohort-based format supports sustained focus, peer scrutiny, and the space to surface assumptions that rarely appear in formal meetings. This is not networking with workshops attached, it's two days of decisions under pressure, away from the office.
Decision-focused and context-based
The Residency is structured around the decisions you need to make as a senior leader, not the tools you might be using. This programme installs governance structures and decision frameworks, the operating systems that make strategy actionable and transformation sustainable.
You will work on your own organisational reality, supported by faculty, cohort discussion and a disciplined process.
Artefacts that last
You will leave with operating tools developed for your specific organisational context:
- A clear, written AI stance: where you can stand on AI, boundaries and risk
- A real initiative, already in motion and pressure-tested with your peers
- New relationships with senior leaders across sectors facing the same decisions
- A governance rhythm for AI decisions: who decides, when, and what triggers escalation
Sustained implementation
The two-day intensive is followed by a structured 12-week follow-through path to ensure the artefacts stay in use and adapt as needed.
You will have access to:
- Faculty support
- Cohort check-ins
- A lightweight accountability structure
Teaching team
Emeritus Professor
James Maclaurin
Co‑Director, Centre for AI and Public Policy, University of Otago
James is a philosopher of artificial intelligence who co-directs Otago's Centre for AI and Public Policy. He is a principal investigator on the AI and Law in New Zealand Project, co‑authored A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press), and advises the government on the ethical and legal dimensions of AI adoption. He brings the policy and governance lens that grounds the Residency in how AI decisions behave beyond the organisation.
Rachel McBride
Programme Director, AI Leadership Residency
Rachel McBride has spent 25 years as a knowledge worker inside the systems AI now promises to simplify, and the last year inside businesses watching where that promise lands and where it doesn't. She co‑designed the Residency's architecture around a simple conviction: AI is a workflow and governance issue before it is a technology one.
Henry Martin
Programme faculty and co‑designer, AI Leadership Residency
Henry brings 25 years of operational leadership, including as Supply Chain Director at New Zealand's largest FMCG company, to the question most AI programmes skip: what happens when the decision hits the production floor? In the Residency, he pressure-tests participant decisions against how work actually runs, surfacing execution risk before it compounds.
Kristine Dery
Professor of Work, Technology and Innovation, MQBS | MIT CISR Research Fellow
Kristine researches what it takes for large organisations to transform how their workforce operates in a digital world. Based at Macquarie Business School and MIT's Center for Information Systems Research, she works with senior leadership teams and boards on workforce readiness, digital operating models, and the organisational design decisions that determine whether transformation actually holds.
Cohort details and registration
The AI Leadership Residency is exclusively offered in Queenstown. Following the success of our inaugural cohort in May, the Residency will run two further cohorts in 2026.
5–6 August 2026
$5,000 + GST per participant
- In-person at QRC, Queenstown
- Small senior cohort (max 20 participants)
- Two-day intensive + follow-through path
Programme fee includes tuition, materials, and catering for the two-day intensive.
Accommodation is not included.
16–17 September 2026
$5,000 + GST per participant
- In-person at QRC, Queenstown
- Small senior cohort (max 20 participants)
- Two-day intensive + follow-through path
Programme fee includes tuition, materials, and catering for the two-day intensive.
Accommodation is not included.
Register for the AI Residency Queenstown 2026
Registration is open now for the Otago Business School's AI Leadership Residency in Queenstown, in August or September 2026. Places are limited, registration will close once each cohort is full.
RegisterContact us
If you have any questions about the AI Residency, please get in touch with us: