Who Influences the Room?
When Everyone Has the Same AI Tools, Who Has the Influence to Change the Decision?
The boardroom is changing. Information is abundant, technology is accelerating and the advantage increasingly belongs to leaders who understand what the numbers cannot tell them.
The Decision Nobody Saw Coming
Twelve executives sit around a boardroom table. The organisation is preparing to enter a new international market, millions of pounds are at stake and the AI-generated financial projections suggest a compelling commercial opportunity. The competitive analysis is comprehensive, the presentation is polished and everyone has arrived with the information needed to make what appears to be a straightforward decision.
The Chief Financial Officer sees growth, the Commercial Director believes the timing is right and the Technology Team has demonstrated how AI can accelerate implementation and reduce costs. The Chair asks whether the organisation is ready to proceed and the discussion moves towards approval until a senior executive raises a concern nobody has fully considered.
The proposed strategy assumes that customer behaviour, trust and perceptions of value will translate easily between markets. Drawing on her experience across different cultural and commercial environments, the executive recognises that the organisation understands the demographics but has not fully understood the people. She has seen how quickly a commercially attractive proposition can become a reputational challenge when leadership underestimates the cultural and political context in which customers interpret a brand.
Why is this important?
The controversies surrounding Bud Light and Nike in 2023 provide two revealing examples.
Both brands faced significant backlash following separate promotional partnerships with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Bud Light experienced an especially severe commercial impact, with US retail sales falling 24.6 percent year-on-year during the four weeks ending 3 June 2023, according to NielsenIQ data reported by Reuters. Nike's promotion of women's sportswear, including a sports bra, prompted criticism from some athletes and consumers, while others defended the partnership as an expression of inclusion.
The two cases produced different commercial outcomes, but both demonstrated how marketing decisions can become flash points for wider cultural disagreements.
The strategic lesson is not that organisations should retreat from inclusive marketing whenever controversy arises. It is that leadership teams must understand how different audiences interpret brand decisions, anticipate potential reactions and establish how they will uphold their commitments when challenged.
The Bud Light experience demonstrated the potential commercial consequences of a consumer backlash, while Nike's controversy illustrated the competing expectations brands may face around representation, identity and inclusion. In both cases, the underlying questions extended beyond advertising into corporate values, stakeholder relationships and reputational resilience.
So what happens next?
The Executive's concern is initially treated as a communications issue that marketing can resolve after the decision. Yet she understands that the problem runs deeper. The organisation may have misunderstood the market itself, and the consequences could affect customer confidence, stakeholder relationships and long-term profitability. A sophisticated AI-generated analysis may identify demographic opportunities and forecast consumer demand, but leadership must still examine the cultural assumptions underlying those projections.
She now faces a familiar leadership dilemma. How does she challenge a sophisticated recommendation without appearing resistant to progress, particularly when everyone else believes the evidence has settled the matter. More importantly, can she translate what she understands about people, culture and reputation into an argument powerful enough to change the board's decision?
So who has the judgement, credibility and influence to change the decision?
The New Leadership Paradox. More Intelligence, Less Distinction
Artificial intelligence has transformed the economics of information. Executives can generate market assessments, refine investor presentations, analyse competitors and prepare board papers in a fraction of the time previously required. Yet a compelling presentation does not guarantee a sound decision.
AI cannot independently determine whether commercial assumptions reflect cultural realities, whether stakeholders will trust a proposed change or whether an organisation has overlooked a significant reputational risk. Nor does access to the same tools mean equal access to proprietary data organisational resources or decision-making authority.
Research from Chief and The Harris Poll, involving more than 1,000 senior women leaders, offers an important perspective. Eighty-six percent agreed that their human skills make them more valuable as leaders, while 68 percent reported using AI to amplify human talent rather than replace it. Eighty-five percent believed organisations investing in both technology and people would outperform those concentrating on technology alone.
These findings suggest that experienced women leaders increasingly recognise the strategic importance of judgement, communication and relationship-building. However, recognising these capabilities is not the same as ensuring organisations reward them.
The emerging competitive advantage is not simply the ability to produce more information, but the capacity to interpret it, challenge its assumptions and persuade others to act on its implications.
Having the Right Answer Does Not Mean You Have Influence
Return to the Executive challenging the expansion strategy.
Her insight may protect the organisation from a costly mistake, but identifying a problem does not automatically give her the authority to change the decision. She must translate cultural knowledge into commercial consequences that colleagues recognise as strategically important.
This exposes an uncomfortable reality.
Organisations frequently celebrate empathy, communication and collaboration as essential leadership skills while continuing to reward those capabilities unevenly. A woman may be recognised for building relationships but overlooked when major decisions are made. Her judgement may be valued informally without being incorporated into the structures through which authority is exercised.
For Black women and other women of colour, this distinction is particularly consequential.
McKinsey and LeanIn.Org's 2025 'Women in the Workplace' report found that for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 60 Black women advanced. Research by Black academics Professor Ella Bell Smith and Professor Stella Nkomo similarly demonstrates how race, gender and organisational culture shape women's progression into corporate leadership.
Experience navigating different cultural environments may provide valuable strategic insight, yet recognition, sponsorship and access remain unequal.
Artificial intelligence will not automatically correct these inequalities, because if existing hierarchies continue to determine whose recommendations are trusted, whose expertise is recognised and whose judgement carries weight, technology risks reinforcing established patterns of exclusion.
The challenge is therefore greater than securing a seat at the table. It is whether Black women can convert their cultural intelligence, professional experience and judgement into recognised authority, strategic influence and economic power.
The Next Broken Rung May Be Digital
Let's go back to the 2025 “Women in the Workplace” report from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org which also identified an emerging AI development gap.
Only 21 percent of entry-level women reported being encouraged by managers to use AI tools, compared with 33 percent of men. Thus, employees receiving encouragement were more than 50 percent more likely to use AI.
Consider the long-term consequences. One employee gains exposure to AI transformation projects, builds relationships with influential decision-makers and develops evidence of strategic leadership. Another receives fewer opportunities and becomes less visible in the initiatives shaping future promotion decisions.
Both may possess comparable potential, but their professional trajectories could become increasingly different.
The issue is not simply access to technology. Senior women must consider whether their organisations are distributing AI opportunities equitably or allowing a new generation of professional inequalities to emerge.
Cultural Intelligence Is Commercial Intelligence
Cultural intelligence is frequently positioned alongside empathy and interpersonal awareness, but its economic significance deserves greater attention. Understanding how different communities interpret trust, value, authority and relationships can influence market entry, customer retention, partnership negotiations and organisational reputation.
Consider the expansion proposal. The financial projections may be impressive, but what happens if the organisation misunderstands the cultural expectations influencing purchasing decisions? Also if its customer proposition assumes a level of institutional trust that does not exist or its communication strategy unintentionally alienates the communities it hopes to attract, what happens next?
The consequences could extend well beyond an unsuccessful marketing campaign.
For Black women who have built careers across different professional and cultural environments, experience navigating unspoken expectations and complex power dynamics can provide valuable strategic insight. This does not mean lived experience automatically creates expertise in every market. Effective cultural intelligence requires evidence, curiosity and local engagement. Nevertheless, it can reveal questions that conventional analytical models overlook.
Cultural intelligence becomes economic power when it improves decisions, protects value, opens markets and creates opportunities that would otherwise be missed.
This is central to NBWN's evolving proposition. The objective is not simply to encourage organisations to appreciate different experiences, but to demonstrate how those experiences contribute to measurable commercial and leadership outcomes.
When AI Can Produce the Story, Who Controls the Narrative?
AI can draft persuasive speeches, refine business proposals and construct polished leadership narratives. However, producing a convincing story is not the same as understanding which story needs to be told or how different audiences will interpret its meaning.
A board may need to understand the commercial consequences of delaying a decision, employees may be concerned about job security and investors may prioritise sustainable returns. The underlying information may be identical, but the concerns shaping each audience's interpretation are different.
Effective leadership narrative connects evidence with context, purpose and consequence. It requires understanding the audience without manipulating it, acknowledging uncertainty and communicating why a particular decision matters.
Consider the extraordinary response to the Swatch and Audemars Piguet Royal Pop collaboration in 2026. By combining the appeal of a prestigious luxury watchmaker with Swatch's more accessible positioning, the launch generated intense consumer demand, long queues and disruption at some retail locations.
For customers, the story was about aspiration and access, for collectors and resellers, exclusivity and potential value and for the business, commercial opportunity accompanied by operational risk. The product was the same, but its meaning differed across audiences, demonstrating how a compelling brand narrative can influence behaviour in ways that extend well beyond the original marketing strategy.
For Black women and other professionals whose experiences have not always been reflected in conventional leadership narratives, this creates an opportunity to translate distinctive perspectives into strategic insight. The value is not simply having a different story, but knowing how to make that experience relevant to decisions affecting organisations, markets and careers.
As AI-generated communication becomes increasingly polished, authenticity alone will not guarantee influence. Leaders must demonstrate credibility, judgement and the ability to explain what others may have overlooked.
Back in the Boardroom
The expansion proposal remains on the table. The financial projections are convincing, the technology has delivered exactly what was requested and the organisation appears ready to approve a significant investment.
The chair returns to the senior Executive who raised the cultural concern and asks what she is recommending. She understands the commercial opportunity and has no intention of obstructing growth, but she also recognises that the board is treating a potentially serious strategic risk as a minor communications detail.
She could repeat her concerns, remain silent or find a way to change how the room understands the problem. The distinction matters because another polished presentation is unlikely to alter the decision. What she needs is the ability to connect her experience and evidence to consequences that the other executives recognise as commercially significant.
For a moment, the room falls silent. Everyone has access to the same analysis, yet the decision may now depend on something the technology cannot settle independently: the ability to recognise what matters, explain why it matters and influence what happens next.
How does she turn an overlooked perspective into the argument that changes the room?
Stories Only You Can Tell. The Leadership Advantage AI Cannot Simply Generate
This is the question at the heart of the National Black Women's Network's forthcoming Lunch & Learn, Stories Only You Can Tell, taking place on Friday 16 October 2026, from 12:00 to 13:00 UK time.
Award-winning writer, director, producer and founder of Scene-opsis Productions Morolake Adesina joins NBWN to explore how narrative, cultural intelligence and human judgement can strengthen executive influence in an AI-driven world.
Morolake brings an understanding of how stories are constructed, how audiences interpret meaning and how narrative can make complex experiences visible and memorable.
For senior leaders, these capabilities extend beyond public speaking or personal branding. They concern translating experience into insight, communicating strategic consequences and establishing credibility when information alone is insufficient.
Whether you are leading organisational transformation, negotiating commercial opportunities, developing future leaders or repositioning your professional expertise, this conversation invites you to examine how your distinctive experiences can strengthen your authority and influence.
The boardroom has changed and so have the tools available to everyone inside it. Yet the responsibility to exercise judgement, build trust and make consequential decisions remains fundamentally human.
AI can help you prepare for the room. Your cultural intelligence, judgement and ability to communicate meaning can determine what happens once you are inside it. The next important decision may not be shaped by the person who produces the most information, but by the person who recognises what everyone else has overlooked and knows how to make that insight count.
The question is no longer whether you have a story worth telling. It is whether you know how to turn that story into influence.
Join Morolake Adesina for ‘Stories Only You Can Tell’ and explore how to make your experience, perspective and professional judgement count when the decisions that matter are being made.
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