Every organization adopting AI right now is making the same mistake. They are bolting a chatbot onto a process that was already broken, and wondering why the chaos got faster instead of going away. Built from actually deploying an AI agent inside real professional-services operations, not a generic AI-hype pitch, this session gives you a five-role framework for what an AI teammate should (and shouldn't) do inside your existing execution chain.

Rhonda Lea kept seeing client after client with the same blind spots. Most were doing the work, but they had no real way to track it. There was no accurate picture of whether the client work was actually profitable, where the profits were leaking, and what to do about it. So she partnered with a software developer and helped design a system that gave clients real visibility into their own fulfillment and profitability. But once that system was running, a new problem showed up. Keeping the system fed and maintained, so the tracking system stayed accurate, took more administrative work than she would have liked to see. That’s when she realized the same technology that gave clients visibility could also do the maintaining, freeing up time so employees could spend it on the part of the job the system couldn’t do; the personalized, face-to-face relationships with their clients in front of them. These AI teammates taking on several roles at once became The AGENT Framework™.

What You Walk Away With

• Identify the five roles every operations team is quietly missing and where they're currently falling through the cracks.

• Understand why bolting AI onto a broken process makes the process fail faster, not slower.

• Apply the AGENT Framework to embed AI at each link of your execution chain without losing quality or control.

• Walk away with a readiness checklist for where your organization is, and isn't, ready to hand work to an AI teammate.

Who This Is For

Anyone trying to figure out where AI actually belongs in their operations instead of just bolting on a chatbot.

Executives and business leaders, operations leaders (COOs, VPs of Operations), professional-services and GRC firm leaders, people managers and team leads, and founders of scaling organizations.

The Framework

Most AI adoption stories skip the part underneath the work itself, the execution chain, that runs from the sales all the way through to getting paid. The AGENT Framework™ maps one AI teammate to five roles inside that chain, built from real operational experience putting AI to work end to end, not a theoretical model. This session also covers where AI doesn't belong yet, including which decisions still need a human, and why the organizations who adopt AI successfully start with visibility instead of autonomy.

"The firms that win with AI aren't the ones who hand over the most work. They're the ones who use it to free up the one thing a machine can't replace: an employee's time to actually be present with the customer in front of them."

Format Options

• Breakout / keynote presentation (45-60 minutes): also booked as a standalone speaking topic. [Link to Speaking page]

• Half-day workshop: anchored in real operational examples, includes the "Are You AGENT-Ready?" checklist as a leave-behind tool.

Why Rhonda Lea

Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB) and 2025 IAOTP Top Transformation Leader of the Year in Strategic Operations, Rhonda has helped build SaaS solutions that put AI to work inside real client operations, learning firsthand where automation actually helps and where it doesn't. She's also navigated the leadership dynamics she's writing about in her upcoming book, How Dare She? This framework comes from hands-on experience putting AI into production, not from watching the AI hype cycle from the sidelines.