Do not ask for mandate. Mobilize it.

At OMV Petrom, I used the iCouncil, supported by task forces, to govern digitalization across the business. I would apply that structure to an industrial company's AI portfolio, with business leadership responsible for both investment choices and deployment rules.

A company-wide business council should govern the pilot portfolio, policies and guardrails together. It needs business leaders with budget authority, supported by IT, security, legal and operational specialists. Its remit should include backing valuable opportunities, combining overlapping work, funding shared capabilities and stopping pilots that cannot justify further resources. A crisp monthly scorecard should carry those decisions to the executive board.

Fund the conditions for deployment

Keeping those decisions together matters. If several promising pilots need the same operational data, the council can fund a shared solution and settle the conditions for using it. A policy written separately from investment decisions can leave the business with a requirement nobody has funded.

Task forces bring business and specialist expertise to specific cross-company problems: policy development, startup collaborations, a learning curriculum or conditions for scaling across sites. They should return with recommendations the council can act on.

The executive board must give the council an explicit portfolio mandate and reserve material strategic decisions. With P&L owners around the table, the council brings substantial budget and investment authority into the same room.

If the council moves, the combined business responsibility is big enough for the rest of the company to follow suit.