A podcast about the powerful forces transforming our world. It’s not just technology that shapes the future—there are deeper, often-ignored megatrends driving disruption. These Grey Elephants are the big challenges we hope will go away but can’t afford to ignore. Elephants in the Boardroom offers a megatrend radar for leaders who want to identify tomorrow’s most important opportunities, seize advantage, and shape a better future. Join us for unflinching discussions, incisive insights, and actionable strategies to stay ahead in a rapidly changing world. Powered by Achilles.
In September 2026, AI's builders started publicly warning that the technology could destroy us - while building faster than ever. Dean and Graeme think everyone is asking the wrong question.
When a senior Anthropic researcher resigned warning of AI Armageddon, and the company's CEO called for "pacing the frontier," the world fixated on one question: how fast should we run the AI race? Dean van Leeuwen and Graeme Codrington think that's the wrong question entirely. The right one is: where exactly are we racing to?
This host-only episode cuts through the hype to ask what nobody in the mainstream AI debate seems to be asking. Graeme unpacks what large language models actually are - and why the real danger isn't autonomous AI, but humans removing guardrails and then claiming they couldn't stop it. Dean revisits the Waymo standoff that went viral to make the case for humans in the lead, not just in the loop. And together they argue that AI should stand not for Artificial Intelligence but for Advancing Intelligence - and that the industry desperately needs its President Kennedy moment: a clear end game for what all of this should make humanity capable of.
You’ll take away:
• Define your AI end game before you choose your tools
• Humans in the lead means responsibility, not just oversight
• AI stands for Advancing Intelligence - machines and humans together, not machines instead of humans
This episode explores:
Intelligent Advances - one of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.
• The seven grey elephants framework → tomorrowtoday.consulting/greyelephantsintroduction
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3 Sept 2026
Strategic Procurement: Beyond Efficiency in an Age of Disruption with Paul Noël
The supply chains that gave you thirty years of competitive advantage are now your greatest vulnerability. So what do you build instead?
From the humanoid robot games in Beijing as a signal of shifting industrial capability to using Stewart Brand’s Pace Layers model to explain why the world is catching leaders off guard, Dean van Leeuwen and Graeme Codrington explore how the slow-moving parts of the system - infrastructure, governance, the natural environment - are now changing as fast as fashion.
This month's guest is Paul Noel, chairman of Achilles US & Canada, with an on-the-ground view of where US businesses are most exposed right now and the question most organisations aren’t asking: not how do we optimise our supply chains, but how do we make them resilient enough to survive a world where the underlying assumptions - frictionless transport, stable geopolitics, low tariffs - have disappeared.
Paul also explains why vertical integration is making a quiet comeback, how data centres have become a perfect microcosm of modern supply chain risk, and the three questions he’d ask any CEO to find out whether their supply chain is genuinely resilient - starting with: do you know your head of procurement’s name?
You’ll take away:
• Efficiency optimisation has become fragility - the model needs rebuilding around resilience
• Your biggest blind spots are where you stopped looking - beyond tier one
• Procurement must be a board-level conversation before it becomes a crisis
This episode explores:
The Big Squeeze, Angry Planet, and Multipolarity - three of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.
The Elephant You Could Name:
When was the last time your organisation retired someone whose wisdom you couldn’t afford to lose?
🔗 Resources mentioned:
Stewart Brand’s Pace Layers model - from The Clock of the Long Now (1999)
• Toyota just-in-time supply methodology - and its limits under disruption
• Boeing supply chain case study - the cost of over-optimisation
• Straits of Hormuz, Malacca, Taiwan, Dover, Bosphorus - global shipping lane data (2025)
• Humanoid robot games, Beijing - Robot Olympic Games 2026
• The seven grey elephants framework → tomorrowtoday.consulting/greyelephantsintroduction
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6 Aug 2026
Human Leadership: Why Experience Has No Expiry Date with Faisal Abdalla
Faisal Abdalla became CEO of a 27-country business, stepped down in his early seventies - and took the HR job. What happens when experience refuses to expire?
Dean van Leeuwen and Graeme Codrington open this month’s episode with the grey elephants on their radar they see stampeding: the reshaping of global supply chains from efficiency to strategic dependency; 17 countries with simultaneous wildfires; China’s one-child policy time bomb; and OpenAI’s models autonomously hacking Hugging Face - raising questions about whether AI singularity has already quietly arrived.
Our guest this month is Faisal Abdalla - former CEO of ALJ Saudi Arabia Motors, now its Chief HR and Kaizen Officer, and author of Emonomics - The Economics of Positive Emotions. With 50 years of leadership across 27 countries, Faisal makes a quietly radical argument: the human being is always the most important driver of any organisation. And love - in the fullest sense of the word - is the practical foundation of effective leadership.
You’ll take away:
• Lead through informal power - the kind that can’t be granted or taken away
• Experience is a strategic asset - the wisdom that leaves with every forced retirement is irreplaceable
• HR leadership requires a different patience - culture change takes years; the leaders who understand this build institutions
This episode explores: Ageing Populations and Intelligent Advances - two of the seven grey elephants we track at TomorrowToday Global.
The Elephant you could name: When was the last time your organisation retired someone whose wisdom you couldn’t afford to lose?
🔗 Resources mentioned·
· Emonomics: The Economics of Positive Emotions - forthcoming book by Faisal Abdalla
· Abdul Latif Jameel (ALJ) - global family business founded in Saudi Arabia, operating in 27+ countries (alj.com)
· The Jameel Principles - values framework at the heart of ALJ, centred on respect, empathy, and giving back
· Kaizen - Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, embedded in ALJ through its Toyota origins
· Hugging Face - open-source AI platform; OpenAI models reportedly gained unauthorised access (huggingface.co)
· AI Singularity - Sam Altman’s claim that the point of indistinguishable human/machine intelligence may already have arrived
· Ray Kurzweil - futurist who predicted singularity circa 2045
· ELIZA Emulator (elizaemulator.com)
· China’s one-child policy - and its second/third-order demographic consequences
· The seven grey elephants framework → tomorrowtoday.consulting/greyelephantsintroduction
Sponsored by Achilles - building anti-fragile, transparent supply chains. achilles.com
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Who has been a guest on Elephants in the Boardroom
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Tom Eaton
Øistein Jensen
Mara Vernal-Konda
Tony
Pia Heidenmark Cook
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Dean Van Leeuwen and Graeme Codrington host the show. Published by TomorrowToday Consulting.
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