Data & AI advisory for boards and executive teams
We help boards and executive teams get measurable value from data and AI, with governance that stands up to regulators.
We carry the work from strategy and education through to transformation and implementation. One senior team, from the first board conversation to controls running in production.
Advisers who have run it, not only advised on it.
Track record
Our leadership team's combined experience
Achieved in previous executive roles, not under Data Heartbeat engagements.
Who we work with
Organisations where data and AI decisions carry real consequences
Leading Asian Powerhouse Stock Exchange
Global FMCG based in Europe
Profiles of the kinds of organisations we work with, not published case studies or statements of results. We never publish client names.
What we do
Three ways we help
Executive Heartbeat Assessment™
We score your organisation against the Six Vital Signs™ and give you a board presentation and a 90-day roadmap.
The DiagnosticChange that runs in production
Governance controls in production, an operating model with named owners, and value measured against a baseline. We sell no software.
Advisory & TransformationBoards and executives who can oversee AI
Board briefings, executive workshops and tailored programmes on AI governance.
AI Governance EducationHow we engage
Start where your problem is
Different challenges need different starting points. We can diagnose the opportunity, tackle a defined priority, lead a transformation, advise the executive accountable for the outcome or act as a standing strategic adviser to the leadership team.
Executive Diagnostic
The Executive Heartbeat Assessment™ across the Six Vital Signs™, for complex readiness questions that cut across the enterprise.
Targeted Intervention
A focused strategy, operations, risk or technology problem, with a defined scope and deliverables.
Transformation Partnership
End-to-end design, delivery oversight and specialist execution for a mandate with several workstreams.
Executive & Board Advisory
Independent challenge, governance, decision support and periodic value reviews.
Strategic Adviser to the Leadership Team
An ongoing advisory role alongside the CEO and executive team on data and AI strategy, priorities and investment decisions. No assessment is required to start.
You can start without an assessment. Begin with advisory, or bring a problem you already know and we will work on it directly.
Selected challenges
The kinds of challenges we help with
Anonymised problem types. These describe situations we work on, not client results.
AI pilots are not reaching production.
The pilot list grows each quarter. Very little goes live, and nobody can say exactly why.
AI governance must stand up to regulatory scrutiny across markets.
Different regulators, different expectations, one set of controls that has to hold everywhere.
Technology licensing costs are rising faster than the change budget.
More of each year's budget goes to running what exists, and less to changing it.
AI delivery needs to be industrialised, not handcrafted.
Each model is built differently. A repeatable software development lifecycle for AI, with controls built in, is missing.
Data foundations cannot yet support trusted, decision-ready data.
Data is spread across systems, ownership is unclear and leaders do not fully trust the numbers they are given.
Our team
Senior practitioners who lead every engagement
Mohammed Rahim
Arjun Chib
Karthik Rajaraman
Kannan Kandasamy
Talk to us
Tell us the two or three outcomes that matter most to you.
A member of our leadership team will reply and set up a conversation. No assessment needed to start.
The Diagnostic
The Executive Heartbeat Assessment™
An evidence-based view of where your Data & AI programme stands, scored against the Six Vital Signs™ and delivered to the board with a 90-day roadmap.
The problem it solves
Most organisations are investing in AI. Few can show the value.
Pilots multiply, controls lag behind, and the board hears confident updates it cannot test. The Diagnostic replaces opinion with evidence: what is working, what is not, and what to do first.
When it is most useful
- Before a major Data or AI investment
- When pilots stall and nothing reaches production
- After an audit or regulatory finding
- As a baseline for a newly appointed executive
- When the board asks whether AI is under control
The Diagnostic is optional. If you already know the problem, you can engage us on it directly.
The Six Vital Signs™
Six measures of a healthy Data & AI programme
| Vital sign | What it measures | A question for your team |
|---|---|---|
| Data Trust | Whether the business acts on what the data says, and overrides it for the right reasons. | Where do we still overrule the data, and are we right to? |
| AI Readiness | Whether the organisation can scale beyond one model, or only run one at a time. | What has moved from pilot to live in the last twelve months, and what stopped the rest? |
| Governance | Whether controls are evidenced and inspectable, not merely documented. | Could we evidence a model control to a regulator this week, without a fire drill? |
| Operating Model | Whether outcomes are owned by a named executive, not just delivered by a team. | Who loses their objective if this use case fails? |
| People & Adoption | Whether people use the output, override it correctly and can explain why. | Can the people using this explain when they should not trust it? |
| Value Realisation | Whether value was measured against a baseline set before the work began. | What was the baseline, and who set it before we started? |
How it works
Five stages
Scope
Agree the questions, the business units in scope and who sponsors the work.
Gather evidence
Executive interviews, document review and analysis of how decisions are actually made.
Score and analyse
Score each Vital Sign, by business unit, and find the causes behind the scores.
Report
A board presentation with findings, priorities and a 90-day roadmap.
Act and re-measure
Act on the roadmap, then re-measure to show what has changed.
Indicative duration To confirm
Sample output
What the board receives
Heatmap: Vital Signs by business unit
All figures on this page are illustrative. They are not client data and not a forecast.
Want to know where you stand?
Talk to us about whether the Diagnostic is the right starting point for you.
Advisory & Transformation
From strategy to controls running in production.
We work on the business problems that data and AI should be solving, and we stay to see the change delivered.
Business challenges
Where we focus
Financial crime
AML, KYC, fraud and scams.
Operational risk
Controls that are evidenced, not only documented.
Operational resilience
Critical services that keep running under stress.
Payments
Faster, safer payment operations.
Technology cost
Licensing and vendor spend brought back under control.
Cyber
Data and AI risk managed alongside cyber risk.
How it fits together
Four disciplines, one thread of governance
Data
Data the business trusts enough to act on.
AI
Use cases that reach production and stay there.
Transformation
An operating model with named owners and budgets.
Value
Benefits measured against a baseline set before the work began.
Our role
Independent, not hands-off
We sell no software. That independence does not mean we step back once the strategy is written.
We lead and assure implementation alongside your teams: setting up governance controls in production, putting named owners in the operating model and measuring value against a baseline. Your teams keep the capability when we leave.
AI Governance Education
Oversee AI with confidence, not faith.
Practical education for boards and executives who are accountable for AI they did not build.
Core programme
AI Governance for Boards and Executives
Board directors and chairs of audit and risk committees, CEOs and executive committees, and the CRO, CCO, CDO and CAIO.
- Ask management the questions that reveal real AI risk
- Tell evidenced controls from documented ones
- Set clear accountability for each AI use case
- Judge whether AI investment is producing measurable value
Three formats
Board briefing
A focused session for the full board or a committee.
ExCo workshop
A working session for the executive committee, built around your own AI portfolio.
Tailored programme
A programme designed around your institution, regulators and priorities.
Durations and formats To confirm
Senior leaders track
For the leaders who put AI to work
Programmes for senior leaders below the executive committee who own AI use cases day to day.
Responsible AI Adoption In development
How to deploy AI responsibly in your own function, and how to know when not to trust it.
About us
An independent, practitioner-led Data & AI advisory firm.
We help organisations get more value from data and AI, with the trust and controls to do it responsibly. Our leadership has run Data, AI and operations inside complex global institutions. Based in Singapore, working globally.
Leadership
Complementary experience across data, AI, transformation and regulation Bios to be approved by each person
Mohammed Rahim
Former Group Chief Data Officer at Standard Chartered, leading Data & AI across 54 markets. Built an enterprise AI platform used by 70,000 colleagues and took more than 40 AI solutions into production. Harvard Business Review author, Money20/20 keynote speaker, four-time Digital Banker Global AI Award winner, and guest lecturer at NUS, SMU and SUTD.
mohammed.rahim@dataheartbeat.ai
Arjun Chib
Former managing director and C-suite leader in global banking across more than 50 markets and 15,000 people. Ran enterprise transformation across retail, wealth, private banking and securities. Speaker at the UN and GITEX.
arjun.chib@dataheartbeat.ai
Karthik Rajaraman
Led global programmes for BCBS 239, data sovereignty and AI compliance with the EU AI Act. Helps clients turn regulation from a constraint into a route to scale.
karthik.rajaraman@dataheartbeat.aiKannan Kandasamy
Leads programme delivery and governance across our engagements.
kannan@dataheartbeat.aiHow we assemble teams
Every engagement is led by a member of the leadership team, who stays accountable from start to finish. Where the work needs it, we bring in specialists for particular skills or markets, and we tell you who they are and what they will do.
Our approach
"Every institution has a rhythm. When data and AI align to that rhythm, intelligence strengthens the system. When they do not, complexity overwhelms it."Mohammed Rahim, CEO
Four principles
Diagnosis before prescription
We understand the condition of your organisation before we recommend anything.
Outcomes before technology
We define the outcome first, then decide what data and AI it needs.
Governance built in, not bolted on
Controls designed into the work from day one, sized to the actual risk.
Independent
We sell no software, so our advice follows your interests.
Work with us
For firms that want to work alongside us
We bring executive-level problem definition, regulated-industry judgement and transformation leadership. Partners bring solution depth, delivery capacity and specialist skills.
Joint market development
Work together on executive problem discovery, qualified opportunities and industry go-to-market.
Co-delivery
We lead strategy or transformation oversight while partners provide agreed technical, operational or implementation capacity.
Specialist
Domain specialists join client work where their expertise is needed, on transparent terms.
We recommend solutions on client fit. Any commercial arrangement with a partner is disclosed to the client. To confirm
Insights
Practical thinking on Data & AI governance, value and leadership.
The newsletter
Data Heartbeat Weekly Briefing
A weekly briefing for executives on LinkedIn.
Subscribe on LinkedIn Link to confirmSpeaking and teaching
Keynotes include Money20/20. Guest lectures at NUS, SMU and SUTD.
To invite a speaker, talk to us.
Featured
Recent pieces
The AI Factory
Why producing AI at scale needs an operating model, not more pilots.
Link to confirmEvery AI system has a pulse
What to monitor once a model is live, and who should be watching.
Link to confirmGovernance as a floor, not a ceiling
How governance sized to real risk lets institutions move faster.
Link to confirm