AI for Leaders
About the program
There is no lack of conversation, news, and insight about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential impact on business.
This immersive program will start by providing participants with a foundational overview of what AI is (and isn’t), where it comes from, how it works, how it is being used in business today, and what’s coming next. The program will focus on two powerful
branches of AI - Predictive Machine Learning and Generative AI - and will include in-class activities to explore these concepts.
Leaders will learn to transform their organizations by integrating analytics and AI into their operations. The focus on improving the success rate of AI projects and applying learned concepts to actual business use-cases sets this program apart, providing leaders with actionable insights and tools to drive their organizations forward.
The program will dive deep into several powerful branches of AI, including Predictive Machine Learning, Generative AI, and Agentic AI, and will include in-class activities to explore these technologies.
By the end of this program, you will be able to:
- Clearly define AI and explain the benefits, limitations, and trade-offs of its core techniques
- Understand both the strategic and tactical considerations of implementing AI initiatives across business units
- Identify, evaluate, and prioritize AI opportunities using a structured framework that increases project success rates
- Apply AI to real-world business scenarios from your own organization and build early-stage prototypes of AI-powered solutions
- Collaborate effectively with data and technology teams by understanding AI model customization, prompt engineering, and common deployment challenges
- Harness generative AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT) to drive productivity, automate workflows, and innovate customer experiences
- Enhance and adapt AI systems by integrating organizational data and aligning capabilities with business goals
- Evaluate and manage the risks, ethical dilemmas, and unintended consequences associated with AI deployments
- Design and apply ethical principles and governance frameworks to ensure responsible and fair use of AI
- Navigate the evolving regulatory and policy landscape surrounding AI, including privacy, bias mitigation, and compliance
- Communicate a clear vision for AI integration to executive stakeholders and gain buy-in across your organization
- Develop a personalized AI action plan (“playbook”) tailored to your organization’s needs, resources, and strategic objectives
- Leave with the tools and confidence to lead successful, responsible, and impactful AI initiatives
Available via live, in-person delivery
Attend the program in an immersive, in-person environment at the Donald Gordon Hotel and Conference Centre, located in Kingston, Ontario, adjacent to the Queen's University campus.
Who should attend
Managers, executives, and business leaders of any kind, within any functional area, sector, and industry.
Discounts & Grants Available
Canada-Ontario Job Grant
Located in Ontario? Offset your training fees with the Canada-Ontario Job Grant. Find out more about the job grant.
Volume Discounts
Queen’s Executive Education is pleased to offer a 15% discount for organizations that pre-pay for five or more seats on any of our programs within a 12-month period. Check your eligibility to receive a volume discount
Registered Charities
Queen’s Executive Education is pleased to offer a limited number of discounted seats in every program to employees of Canadian registered charities. Check your eligibility to receive a registered charity discount
A Recognized Symbol of Excellence
Participants who complete the program earn the AI for Leaders digital badge credential.
Personal Benefits
- Gain an introductory understanding of AI fundamentals
- Learn practical AI applications for strategic integration into business operations
- Stay informed about emerging trends and future advancements in AI
- Improve AI project success rates
- Launch AI-based ventures through practical frameworks and real-world examples
- Learn how to manage risks and foster a culture of data-driven decision-making
- Learn how to automate workflows and enhance complex decision-making, driving business innovation and efficiency
- Gain a deep understanding of responsible and ethical AI principles and practical tools for designing ethical AI decision-making systems
- Learn how to implement ethical AI practices in your organization
Organizational Benefits
- Equip leaders with a comprehensive understanding of AI, enabling them to drive innovation and enhance operational efficiency
- Responsibly adopt AI technologies, ensuring a competitive edge and sustainable growth
- Access to strategies and frameworks that will successfully integrate analytics and AI into operations, reducing the risk of project failures
- Identification of valuable AI opportunities
- Proficiency in generative AI tools, leading to streamlined workflows, enhanced decision-making, and innovative business solutions
- Automation of routine tasks and the strategic use of AI for creating new value propositions
- Equip leaders with the knowledge and tools to develop fair, responsible, and ethical AI systems, fostering trust and sustainability in AI-driven decision-making processes
Program content
Foundations of AI
Build the conceptual and strategic foundation to confidently lead in an AI-enabled world.
- Define AI and explain key types of analytics and learning (supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement)
- Understand the building blocks of modern AI systems: data science, models, and infrastructure
- Explore the fundamentals of machine learning, including how systems learn from data, improve over time, and generalize across use-cases
- Analyze cross-industry use cases that illustrate the evolving role of AI
- Explore the shift from predictive machine learning to agentic AI—systems that act autonomously and contextually
- Identify opportunities and limitations through a leader’s lens
Generative and Agentic AI
Demystify the capabilities and risks of generative and autonomous AI systems.
- Explore the core architecture of large language models (LLMs)
- Understand how generative AI systems like ChatGPT are trained and what this means for accuracy, bias, and reliability
- Learn what makes an AI system “agentic” and how this shift impacts workflow design and trust
- Experiment with prompt engineering techniques to optimize AI output quality and reliability
- Evaluate implications of model size, architecture, and training data for enterprise use
eview main concepts and apply them to use-cases from their organizations - Discuss enterprise adoption models: APIs, open-source alternatives, fine-tuning vs. in-context learning, and trade-offs between control and performance
- Review emerging vendor ecosystems and assess build vs. buy vs. integrate strategies for GenAI solutions
Leading AI–Human Collaboration and Workforce Evolution
Redefine roles, foster trust, and lead your organization through AI-driven change.
- Understand how AI changes job responsibilities, skills, and leadership expectations
- Explore models for AI–human collaboration in decision-making, creativity, and operations
- Address concerns about displacement, trust, and employee empowerment
- Create leadership strategies for team reskilling, AI adoption, and psychological readiness
- Reflect with peers on how to align people, culture, and technology through transformation
Responsible AI, Ethics, and Governance
Lead with integrity by embedding fairness, transparency, and accountability in AI initiatives.
- Learn ethical frameworks for designing and managing AI systems responsibly
- Explore global regulatory trends and organizational compliance strategies
- Apply ethical analysis to complex dilemmas using real organizational data
- Examine tools and governance models to mitigate bias and ensure oversight
- Debate difficult trade-offs between innovation, productivity gain, and risk
Designing AI Experiments and Measuring Impact
Learn how to quantify the real value of AI with causal thinking and experimental design.
- Explore how to move from correlation to causation when assessing the value of AI
- Learn structured ways to compare outcomes with and without AI to support more confident decision-making
- Discuss strategies to design practical tests and pilots that generate insight
- Examine real-world cases where AI’s impact was either overstated or misunderstood
- Introduce accessible frameworks for linking AI investments to meaningful business results
- Reflect on your own AI initiatives and consider how their effectiveness might be better measured and communicated
Develop Your AI Leadership Playbook
Synthesize your learning into a clear roadmap for immediate application.
- Build a strategic, personalized AI implementation roadmap for your organization
- Identify capabilities to build, metrics to track, and stakeholders to engage
- Present your plan to peers and instructor for feedback and refinement
- Leave with a tailored playbook to guide AI strategy, experimentation, governance, and culture change
In-Person Learning
Learn alongside fellow participants from across the country, discovering best practices that span industries and sectors.
Our in-person programs include classroom learning sessions led by award-winning Smith School of Business professors and industry experts. Practice new skills in breakout sessions, projects and simulations, and apply your learning toward real-world case studies.
Kingston - Donald Gordon Hotel and Conference Centre
The Donald Gordon Hotel and Conference Centre combines the amenities of a full service conference and event centre with the elegance and charm of Kingston’s historic limestone architecture.
Our conference and meeting rooms have been designed to create a comfortable and relaxed working environment, and private guest rooms offer a broad range of amenities.
Session Leaders
Session leaders include senior professors from Smith School of Business and knowledgeable experts from industry. These outstanding teachers are constantly in touch with today's business world through real-world business experience, Board memberships and their own consulting practices.
Dr. Ceren Kolsarici is an Associate Professor, Ian R. Friendly Fellow, Scotiabank Scholar, and Director of the Scotiabank Centre for Analytics and AI at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University.
She is an internationally recognized expert in artificial intelligence, big data, and data-driven decision-making (DDDM), with deep expertise in applying analytics to marketing, consumer goods, financial services, healthcare, retail, and insurance. Her research has been published in top-tier journals including Management Science, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Marketing Research, and International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Dr. Kolsarici has extensive executive teaching and consulting experience, having delivered custom AI and analytics training for executive teams at Scotiabank, Glaxo Smith Klein, Pfizer, Booking.com and other leading organizations. Her executive work focuses on Generative AI strategy, responsible AI governance, and high-impact analytics for business transformation.
She currently serves as Area Editor (AE) at the Journal of Business Research, guest AE at the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM) and is on the Editorial Review Boards of Journal of Marketing Research and IJRM.
At Smith, she leads programs that connect emerging AI capabilities, including GenAI, with practical business applications, helping organizations build internal capabilities and future-proof their talent strategies. Dr. Kolsarici holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from McGill University, an MBA and a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering.
Murray Lei is an Associate Professor of Management Analytics and a Distinguished Research Fellow at Smith School of Business, Queen's University. His research focuses on developing data-driven frameworks that enable companies to make dynamic decisions under uncertainty. Additionally, he investigates how to align data-driven analytics with important societal values, particularly in the areas of privacy, fairness, and sustainability.
Murray’s research has been published in top-tier peer-reviewed academic journals and is supported by various funding agencies. His achievements have been recognized through multiple awards, including the New Researcher Achievement Award at Queen’s University. He has collaborated with many leading global tech companies such as Alibaba, Instacart, Flipkart, Staples, and Oracle Retail Labs, where he has contributed to developing real-time, large-scale analytics solutions.
Murray’s teaching interests span Business Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, and Revenue Management. He has extensive teaching experience on these subjects across various academic levels, including executive programs, professional graduate programs (e.g., Master's in Management Analytics (MMA)), research-based graduate programs (M.Sc. and Ph.D.), and undergraduate courses. Murray was a winner of the Professor of the Year Award for the MMA program.
With a unique ability to present technical topics in an easy-to-understand and inspiring way, Steve is a sought-after professor and AI expert at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business. He leads both introductory and expert-level courses on multiple aspects of AI in undergraduate, graduate and executive education programs. He has been selected by students in the Master of Management Analytics as MMA Professor of the Year for the last three years running.
Holding PhD, MSc, and BSc degrees in Computer Science, Steve’s research focuses on analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing. His work has been published in leading journals including IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Empirical Software Engineering, and others. In recognition of his work in the analytics and AI space, he was awarded a prestigious Scotiabank Scholar research grant.
Beyond teaching and research, Steve has run a big data startup company and conducted industrial operations research at Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor and commercial electronics company. He regularly consults with a wide range of organizations on the application of AI for best business outcomes.
Upcoming Sessions
421 Union Street
421 Union Street
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