Insights From Fiona Hewitt to Help You Rethink Work, Leadership, and AI

There’s no shortage of conversation about AI right now... but beyond the hype, something far more significant is taking shape. Organisations are rethinking how they’re structured, how decisions happen, and what leadership truly demands in this new environment.

Fiona Hewitt, Founder and Managing Partner at Unboxable, and an internationally experienced voice in organisational transformation and leadership, joined us for a genuinely insightful and thought-provoking fireside conversation about AI - not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for rethinking how we design work, lead our people, and shape the organisations of the future.

She brought such clarity and warmth to a topic that can feel overwhelming.

A Quick Summary of Fiona's Key Takeaways

• AI is not the sea change. It is the first domino. The real shift is in how we design work, organise teams, and lead people through ongoing change.
• The intelligence era is already here. Knowledge is now instantly accessible to everyone. That means the value of leadership is no longer about having the answers. It is about judgment, sense-making and the quality of decisions you make with the information available.
• Future fluency over future-proofing. You cannot prepare for a fixed destination that does not exist. What organisations can do is build the skills, culture and habits that allow them to adapt and move confidently as things evolve.
• Start with the work, not the structure. The organisations seeing real results are those that look first at how work is actually being done, where the friction is, and where AI can genuinely help, before touching roles or org charts.
• Smaller organisations have a real advantage. Less bureaucracy, faster decisions, leaner teams. These are strengths. AI creates instant scale, and New Zealand businesses are well placed to move faster than they might think.
• The gap is real, but closeable. The finding that 100% of organisations are navigating significant change while only 10% of leaders feel equipped to handle it is sobering. But Fiona was clear: this is not fixed. Building a genuine change muscle, investing in people alongside technology, and leading with openness and trust are all within reach.

If you were unable to join live or would like to revisit any part of this discussion, you can watch the full webinar recording [59:38] on our Convergence YouTube channel below. We hope this conversation gives you something useful to take back into your organisation 👇