Certified Chief AI Officer
Certified Chief AI Officer · verifiable
A Certified Chief AI Officer who also builds what he recommends.
I hold the Chief AI Officer (CAIO) certification, which covers AI strategy, governance, risk, and change management. The certification shows I know the framework. 24 years of running a company and systems in production show I can use it. Both are on this page, with links to verify.
26%
of organizations now have a Chief AI Officer. The ones that do report about 10% higher ROI on AI.
IBM Institute for Business Value, Jul 2025
94%
of mid-market companies use generative AI. 2% run it at scale.
Kaufman Rossin / NewtonX, Dec 2025, n=100, $5M+ revenue
95%
of enterprise AI pilots show no measurable P&L return.
MIT NANDA, Aug 2025, 300 deployments
Big companies hire for the seat. At $5M–$50M the job usually lands on the CFO or the IT lead as a side project, and that's how a company ends up in the 98%.
What the credential covers
What CAIO certification covers.
The curriculum runs from strategy and tool selection to governance, data privacy, and change management. Here's what those areas look like inside a $5M–$50M company.
Strategy
Which AI work gets funded.
Scoring use cases on hours returned and cost, picking tools against a spec, and saying no to the projects that don't clear the bar.
Governance
Policy, risk, data, and vendor terms.
A usage policy, data boundaries, and vendor review, written for a company without a legal department down the hall.
People
Adoption without the fear.
Training and change management, so the people whose jobs change are in the room when it happens.
The certification is the framework. The 10-day Blueprint is where I apply it to your company.
Credential plus track record
What a course can't teach.
A credential proves training. Ask any AI advisor, me included, for the rest of the list.
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24 years owning a company. Payroll, receivables, and the owner's side of a lot of vendor pitches.
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Systems in production. I build what I recommend. The tools are listed in the Builder card below.
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The 20% rule. If automating a task would return under 20% of someone's time, I recommend deleting the task instead.
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Governance by default. Every system ships with a usage policy, a data boundary, an audit trail, a vendor review, and a named owner.
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A written line on jobs. I decline engagements whose goal is cutting headcount. It's in the engagement letter.
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One accountable person. I own every engagement and check everything that ships.
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Public credentials. All 3 certifications are listed below with links you can check in 30 seconds.
Why it matters
Anyone can call themselves an AI consultant.
There's no license for AI advice. A certification is one of the few outside checks a buyer can verify before the first call.
It's a floor, though. The better question for anyone advising you on AI: show me a system you built that's still running.
I'll answer that one on the fit review, with the tool, the workflow, and the hours it returned.
Who sits in the seat
Lee Pomerantz, Certified Chief AI Officer.
The credential is one of three things behind the work.
Credential
Certified Chief AI Officer
Certified in AI program leadership, governance, and risk. Rebuilt the company as eMediaAI in 2022 to do this work for companies your size.
Operator
24 years running an agency
I've made payroll, chased receivables, and sat on the owner's side of a lot of vendor pitches. The advice comes from that chair.
Builder
Builds what I recommend
HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Make, Copilot Studio and Power Automate, NotebookLM, Cloudflare Workers, Claude Code, Codex, Firecrawl, Langfuse, Promptfoo, and custom agent harnesses. If it goes on your roadmap, I've shipped with it.
Based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Remote nationwide, and on site when you're within a day's drive.
How you get there
Where the certification gets used.
1. AI Opportunity Blueprint™
10 days, $5,000 flat. I map your workflows, apply the 20% rule, price each candidate in hours a year, and hand you a sequenced roadmap. That's the certification applied to your company.
2. Fractional CAIO
A Certified Chief AI Officer on retainer, for one fixed monthly fee quoted after the Blueprint. 3-month minimum, then month to month.
3. Builds
Scoped from the Blueprint and quoted as one project fee. Your team, your vendor, or me.
If the Blueprint doesn’t identify at least 200 hours a year of removable work, each with a named mechanism and an implementation estimate, you don’t pay. You keep the document either way.
Questions owners ask before the call.
What is a Certified Chief AI Officer?
An executive trained and certified to lead a company's AI program: strategy and implementation, governance and ethics, tool selection, data privacy and security, AI literacy, and change management. In a $5M–$50M company, that's usually a fractional role.
How do I verify the credential?
Each certification has a public record on Credsverse with the name, issuer, and date. The links are at the bottom of this page.
What's the difference between a certified CAIO and an AI consultant?
Certification covers governance, risk, and leading an AI program, which most consultants pick up on the job if at all. A consultant is usually hired for one project. A Chief AI Officer owns the program after the project ships.
Can a fractional CAIO lead our AI strategy remotely?
Yes. Most of the work is your leadership meeting, your vendor calls, and your builds, which run fine remotely. I'm on site in Fort Wayne and anywhere within a day's drive.
How does this help my employees?
Every build is scored on the hours it gives back to the person doing the work, and the change plan names who owns it afterward. People first is in the method and in the engagement letter.
Put a certified Chief AI Officer on your hardest workflow.
Bring the one process that hurts. Within 24 hours of the call you'll get a one-page note naming the 2 or 3 workflows where AI would pay off first, whether or not you book anything.
