For boards and board committees that want independent technology expertise in the room.
Independent advice for boards deciding on AI, technology investment and the infrastructure the business runs on, from a practitioner who has built and run it.
Technology, digital innovation and AI governance now lead board recruitment briefs. Executive search firm Derwent names it the first of three capability clusters in its board searches over the past year, with boards seeking directors who can question AI capital spending on risk, return and readiness.
Accounting, banking and finance backgrounds account for 40% of board members. Technology accounts for 7.2%.
Board Diversity Index 2024, cited by ASIC Chair Joe Longo, March 2025
More than half of ASX 500 boards had no director with STEM expertise in 2022.
Elms, Nowland and Weerasinghe, QUT, Journal of Accounting Literature, 2026 (summary)
Firms with greater STEM board expertise are associated with higher innovation investment and firm value, most strongly where the CEO is not from a STEM background.
Elms, Nowland and Weerasinghe, Journal of Accounting Literature, 2026
Advisory committees with an independent AI expert let a board build its own understanding while keeping independent advice close at hand.
AICD, 10 skills for new directors, January 2026; What skills are boards recruiting for right now?, August 2026
Every figure on this page is sourced, with archived copies, on the citations page.
An independent technology and AI adviser on your board’s advisory committee, working alongside management and giving the board a source of independent advice.
Focused briefings for the board on AI governance, technology investment, routing security or IPv6, built around the decisions in front of you.
A structured review of how the board oversees technology: the skills around the table, the reporting it receives from management, and how technology investment decisions are made.
Terry is available for non-executive director and board committee appointments where technology and infrastructure judgement adds to the board.
The Small Bets discipline for AI investment: verify causation, price the dependency risk, and prefer reversibility. Build AI capability incrementally, and treat reversibility as a strategic asset.
Read THE AI MIRAGE →Technology spend tied to measurable outcomes, and platform decisions based solely on the organisation’s interests and the evidence.
CTO as a Service →Infrastructure questions every board with a network should ask: are our routes signed and validated, and what is our IPv6 decision? Trust, but verify.
Routing security · IPv6 · The bookTerry Sweetser (BEng, MBA, MIEAust) brings three decades of building, operating and governing critical internet infrastructure across the Asia-Pacific.
Book a conversation about your board’s technology questions: an advisory role, a briefing, or a governance review.