Ref: Cluster 1 — AI Governance & Enablement
The Choice Tax
Most companies govern AI at the gate — inspecting each output. But the value was never at the gate; it was upstream, in the architecture.
Reclaimed: 325,000+ labor hours
Andrew MacGregor · Strategic Technology Executive
Andrew MacGregor is a strategic technology executive who makes the enterprise’s most expensive moments — mergers, modernization, and the arrival of AI — financially predictable.
Andrew MacGregor is a strategic technology executive specializing in financial predictability, post-merger integration, and AI Governance & Enablement for Fortune 500 and private-equity-backed enterprises. At Americold, he directed the IT integration of a global acquisition spanning 43 sites and cut its cost forecast by $16.06M. At Smurfit WestRock, he delivered $12M in structural savings while governing a $70M capital plan. He is based in Atlanta.
Ref: Five pillars
The ideas, in writing
Essays on governance, integration, and the human side of enterprise technology.
Ref: Keynotes & workshops
Talks that make the expensive moments boring
Booking-ready keynotes, executive briefings, and workshops on AI governance, integration, and IT financial predictability.
The Governance Gap in AI Rollouts
Everyone has an AI pilot. Almost nobody has an AI governance program — and that gap is where budgets, audit trails, and board credibility quietly go missing. What separates AI programs that survive their first audit from those that do not.
- The five questions a board should ask before funding any AI initiative.
- Why “labor hours reclaimed” beats vanity AI metrics — measured honestly.
- A decision-rights model for autonomous workflows.
Keynote 30–45 min · Briefing · Podcast
The Integration Bill: What a Merger Really Costs
Deal models are precise; integration bills are fiction — until someone makes them honest. Directing IT integration governance for a global acquisition spanning 43 sites, 9 workstreams, and 31 systems, re-baselining the roadmap cut the integration cost forecast by $16.06M without interrupting service.
- Why integration cost forecasts drift — and the cadence that stops it.
- Sequencing integrations to protect service continuity.
- Decommissioning systems without detonating careers.
Keynote 30–45 min · Workshop
No Surprises: Making the IT Budget Boring Again
“Boring” is the highest compliment a budget can receive. Governing a $70M IT&D capital plan and 100+ concurrent programs at Smurfit WestRock produced $12M in structural savings and $10M+ in cost avoidance — Technology Business Management executed at the operating layer.
- The three implicit tradeoffs hiding in every IT budget.
- Where dark spend hides, and the questions that surface it.
- Demand governance that CFOs respect.
Keynote 30 min · CFO/CIO workshop
The 80/20 Operator: Leading When You’re New
About 80% of enterprise mechanics are universal — finance, governance, delivery. The craft is ramping the domain-specific 20% fast enough that stability arrives without the onboarding lag. A talk about trust, political air cover, and why the hard calls are people calls.
- The 80/20 transferability model for entering any new enterprise.
- Earning decision rights instead of waiting to be granted them.
- A first-90-days cadence that builds trust faster than credentials.
Fireside/Podcast · Keynote 30 min
Ref: Booking
Speaking & media inquiries
Book a keynote, briefing, or podcast recording directly. Travels from Atlanta (Kennesaw, GA); domestic and international.
Join the list
The AI Governance Pre-Flight Checklist
“Twelve questions to answer before your next AI initiative gets funded — the same discipline that put audit-grade guardrails around Fortune 500 automation.”
Ref: The AI Governance Pre-Flight Checklist — PDF, one page
Ref: For editors & coordinators
Media kit
Copy-ready bios, headshots, and fast facts — lift them straight into a program or a byline.
Short bio — ~65 words
Andrew MacGregor is a strategic technology executive specializing in financial predictability, post-merger integration, and AI Governance & Enablement for Fortune 500 and private-equity-backed enterprises. At Americold, he directed the IT integration of a global acquisition spanning 43 sites and cut its cost forecast by $16.06M. At Smurfit WestRock, he delivered $12M in structural savings while governing a $70M capital plan. He is based in Atlanta.
Medium bio — ~150 words
Andrew MacGregor is a strategic technology executive who has spent two decades making complex enterprises financially predictable. His career runs from consulting at KPMG and IBM — serving Fortune 500 clients including Coca-Cola, Disney, AT&T, and Anheuser-Busch — through senior IT governance leadership at Interface, Inc. (2013–2020), where he built the global IT PMO and consolidated seven data centers to three, saving $5M.
At Americold Logistics, Andrew arrived as a CIO advisory consultant and converted into the Director role leading the AGRO acquisition’s IT integration across 43 global sites, 9 workstreams, and 31 WMS/ERP systems — re-baselining the roadmap to cut the integration cost forecast by $16.06M. At Smurfit WestRock, as Senior Director of the Digital Transformation Office, he governed a $70M IT&D capital plan and 100+ concurrent programs, delivering $12M in structural savings; automation under his AI Governance & Enablement discipline reclaimed 325,000+ labor hours.
He speaks and writes on AI governance, integration, and why boring budgets are a leadership achievement. He lives in the Atlanta metro area.
First-person, for the About page
I have spent twenty years in the rooms where technology budgets meet reality — merger integrations, modernization programs, and lately, AI rollouts that boards want yesterday and CFOs quietly worry about.
My job, reduced to one sentence: I make the enterprise’s numbers trustworthy. At Americold, that meant leading the IT integration of a global acquisition — 43 sites, 9 workstreams, 31 warehouse and ERP systems — and re-baselining the plan until the cost forecast came down by $16.06M. At Smurfit WestRock, it meant governing a $70M capital plan and 100+ programs, finding $12M in structural savings, and putting real guardrails around automation through AI Governance & Enablement — 325,000+ labor hours reclaimed, none of it on faith.
The part of the work I write about most is the human part. Every “structural optimization” is somebody’s project, somebody’s team, somebody’s career equity. Navigating that honestly — giving leaders political air cover to make hard calls — is the actual skill. The spreadsheets are the easy part.
Ref: Career anchors
- KPMG
- IBM
- Interface
- Americold
- Smurfit WestRock
Ref: advisory
“If your organization needs this discipline, my advisory practice lives at A3 Strategic Advisory.”
Work with A3 Strategic Advisory