Mandate to Action

Everyone's talking about AI strategy. Nobody built the operating model.

An executive sprint that turns AI strategy conversations into a governance structure, decision rights, and a 90-day execution plan your team can run without outside help.

Facilitated by an operator who's built operating models across manufacturing, electronics, robotics, and software. Not a consultant who studied them.

Book the Signal Check 90 min. $2,500. Useful whether you go further or not.
Signal Check Canvas
Strategic
Organizational
Operational
Decision Map
Gap Analysis
Sponsorship Governance Workflow
What you walk away with
92%
Of mid-market companies hit challenges during AI rollout. Top issues: data quality, skill gaps, and governance.
RSM Middle Market AI Survey, 2025 (966 respondents)
75%
Have not fully integrated AI into core operations, despite 91% adoption. Strategy exists. Operating model doesn't.
RSM Middle Market AI Survey, 2025
4.1x
Higher success rate for AI projects with sustained executive sponsorship vs. those that lose it.
RAND Corporation / Deloitte / MIT, 2025

The gap isn't awareness. It's the layer between strategy and execution that nobody built.

91% of mid-market companies are using AI in some form. But only 25% have it integrated into core operations. The rest are stuck: tools purchased, pilots launched, board questions asked, nobody owning the structure that turns activity into results.

Nobody disagrees that AI matters. But nobody owns the decisions, nobody built the governance, and nobody defined how AI work gets evaluated, approved, and executed inside your specific company.

You've probably said at least one of these:

"We bought Copilot licenses and nobody uses them."

"We had an offsite about AI and came back with a slide deck that's collecting dust."

"Three departments bought three different AI tools and none of them talk to each other."

"We wanted to try a pilot and it was a mess. Nobody knew who owned what and we couldn't figure out how to navigate security."

Why this isn't another AI strategy workshop

Most AI strategy consultants come from management consulting or big tech. Neither background prepares you for building an operating model inside a $200M company where the CEO, COO, and CFO need to agree before anything moves.

Typical AI strategy consultant

Comes from McKinsey, BCG, or a big tech AI team

Has analyzed operating models from the outside

Delivers a framework and a slide deck

Leaves before implementation starts

Benchmarks you against Fortune 500 patterns

This engagement

Facilitated by someone who's held VP roles across manufacturing, electronics, robotics, and software

Has built operating models that survived FDA audits, product recalls, and global supply chains

Builds the model with your team in the room, not for them

Includes a handoff to the person who runs it after

Benchmarks you against 966 mid-market companies your size (RSM 2025)

Start with the Signal Check

A 90-minute working session that classifies your problem, maps where AI decisions are (and aren't) being made across your org, and benchmarks you against mid-market companies that are succeeding.

You walk away with a one-page visual canvas you can pull up in board meetings for the next six months. Not a maturity score. Not a PDF. A tool.

Before the session: You and 2-3 leaders fill out a short questionnaire (20 min each). The facilitator researches your company, your competitors, and your leadership team.
The session: 90 minutes, virtual, with your CEO/COO. Collaborative mapping on the canvas. You build it together.
After: Polished Signal Check Canvas + recommendations appendix delivered within 48 hours.
$2,500
Book the Signal Check
Stands alone. Sometimes the Signal Check tells you to go execute, not buy more consulting.
Signal Check Canvas
Strategic
Organizational
Operational
Decision Map
Gap Analysis
Sponsorship Governance Workflow Metrics
Actual canvas is customized to your company

If the Signal Check reveals you need more

Three additional tiers, each building on the last. The Signal Check determines which ones you need and how far to go. No commitment beyond the tier you're in.
2
The Mandate
Two in-person half-days with your leadership team, one week apart. Between sessions, the facilitator talks directly to your functional leads to find out what's actually happening. You walk out with a pursue/explore/kill list, decision rights, milestones, and a communication plan for the rest of the org.
Starting at $15,000
3
The Operating Sprint
In-person working sessions over 4-6 weeks that build the actual operating model: governance structure, vendor evaluation framework, and a 90-day execution plan. Scoped to your specific needs based on the Signal Check. Includes a handoff to the person who runs it day-to-day.
$25,000 - $45,000 depending on scope
4
The Pulse Check
Quarterly virtual session: is the model working, what changed in AI that matters for you, are you on track. 60 minutes. No minimum commitment.
$5,000 / quarter
Scope, pricing, and engagement structure for Tiers 2-4 are proposed after the Signal Check, based on what it reveals about your specific situation. In-person sessions require travel for companies outside the San Francisco Bay Area (billed at cost).

Where this methodology comes from

18 years building in manufacturing, electronics, robotics, and software. The patterns that break AI adoption are the same ones that break any cross-functional coordination.
Benefits management platform · Series D
Designed the two-track structure that separates the mandate from the operating model
A Series D company with a leadership team split on AI adoption. Half pushing for speed, half skeptical. The internal AI champion couldn't bridge it because everyone knew which side he was on. The problem required separating the political question (should we do this?) from the operational question (how do we do this?). That insight became the core of the Mandate to Action methodology: executive alignment first to set the terms, then a functional build within those terms.
This engagement structure is the basis for Tiers 2 and 3.
AI wearable · Manufacturing & electronics · Series E
8x revenue growth by building the governance framework between product velocity and regulatory risk
An electromechanical device running AI rhythm classification. The operating model challenge: defining the boundary between what the AI could classify with confidence and what required human review. Built the decision framework that let the product team move fast without the compliance team losing sleep.
8x revenue growth. 22% reduction in regulatory prep time. Zero penalties through a product recall.
Supply chain software platform · Series B
Designed the operating model behind $8B+ in revenue across three enterprise partners
Multiple organizations, no shared system of record, zero tolerance for coordination failures. Built chain-of-custody workflows so teams across three enterprise partners could see real-time status without exposing data they shouldn't access. Scaled the org from 3 to 70.
Commercial launch across 100+ centers. $81M in additional revenue from operating model efficiencies that moved the product to market two months ahead of prior benchmarks.
Additional operating experience: point-of-care diagnostics (1M+ units shipped), global contact lens manufacturing (Fortune 1000 supply chain), surgical robotics (5-country audit program, zero FDA findings).
Arvita Tripati

Arvita Tripati

Founder & Managing Director, Vahana Labs

18 years as an operator building products and operating models in regulated industries. I've sat in the rooms where AI adoption stalls, where leadership teams talk past each other, and where good technology dies because nobody built the organizational structure to support it.

I'm not a consultant who studied AI strategy. I'm an operator who built it, broke it, fixed it, and shipped it. Across healthcare, manufacturing, electronics, surgical robotics, and government.

Operating experience across: Healthcare, medical devices, robotics, contract manufacturing, plastics manufacturing, government, consumer electronics, cell & gene therapy, and clinical trials
18+
Years operating
30+
Products launched
2
VP-level roles

Start with the Signal Check

A pre-session questionnaire, company research before you arrive, a 90-minute working session, and a one-page canvas you can use for the next six months.

Book the Signal Check
$2,500 · Includes pre-session research, working session, and Signal Check canvas
The Signal Check stands on its own. No obligation to continue. If the Signal Check tells you to go execute instead of buying more consulting, we'll tell you that.