One of the most critical roadblocks to achieving at‑scale impact with digital and AI (D&AI) transformations is having a sufficient bench of domain leaders. These are the N-2 and N-3 executives (that is, those two to three levels below the CEO) who lead a domain (either a business line or function) and drive end‑to‑end transformation with AI (see sidebar, “What is a domain”). AI tools are everywhere, but the skills to apply them to real business problems—improving customer experience while driving down unit costs at scale—are not.

Having these domain owners is probably the single most critical role any business needs for its AI transformations. The CEO has to lead the transformation overall, and the C-suite needs to align on priorities and enterprise capabilities to enable AI. But it’s the domain leader who has the operational responsibility for translating the visions and plans into real change and real value.

That focus on the domain is particularly critical because most, if not all, companies we have studied derive the majority of their benefits from a few deeply transformed domains.

So, while it’s important to build up the tech-savvy skills of everyone in the business, we will focus this article on the domain owner. The most effective domain owners can speak to customer needs, strategy, organizational design, and operational performance—the traditional executive muscle. But they also have built up a “second muscle”: being tech savvy enough to develop an AI-enabled transformation road map, understand modern software delivery, and appreciate the health of their data estate, technology platforms, and engineering talent.

We are, however, far from having enough domain leaders today. Our analysis of LinkedIn profiles of senior leaders in Fortune 500 companies indicated that just 17 percent of their skill set is technical by nature, and only 5 percent of their careers included holding a technical role.¹ That’s not surprising. Historically, tech‑capable leaders tended to build a career in IT.

Despite the shortage of domain owners with strong AI muscles, a model for what it takes to be an effective domain owner—and how to build the corresponding tech muscles—is emerging.

What skills define domain owners?

Meet Adam Boyd. He’s a senior executive at Citizens Bank. A few years ago, he led a business line called home equity lending, which lets customers borrow money using the equity in their home as collateral. Adam had a vision to reinvent the customer experience with technology. His vision was to provide homeowners with preapproved lines of credit, a much-streamlined application process, and automated back‑office operations so customers could receive their money in just a few days, compared with the industry standard time of as much as 35 or more days.

Bringing this vision to reality required Adam to work side by side with the bank’s technology, credit, risk, compliance, strategy, and finance leaders to develop a road map of use cases that would deliver this new offering. Key elements included 1) using data and AI to automate the analysis of customers’ credit backgrounds to pre-underwrite offers, 2) creating personalized digital marketing campaigns, 3) streamlining the digital application to just a few clicks, and 4) implementing process automation to reduce back‑office cycle time.

The bank’s leadership was excited about his plan and provided him with four cross-functional development teams. Leading tech delivery teams was new for Adam. He had to learn agile software development and the different roles on an agile team. He also learned about the bank’s data architecture and overall technology stack to build this new offering. Adam didn’t just oversee these teams; he stayed closely involved to help overcome roadblocks, redirect development efforts when needed, and ensure, through iterative testing, that the technology being built would meet customer needs.

Finally, Adam owned the change management end to end—resolving channel conflicts, resequencing operations workflows, and upskilling colleagues across contact centers and branches. This required collaborating closely with senior colleagues in distribution, marketing, risk management, technology, and operations.

This program wasn’t always smooth sailing. Hard cross-functional trade-offs were often required from the C‑suite, such as reallocating marketing spend to digital channels and revisiting credit policies. Two years later, however, Adam and his colleagues delivered a breakthrough customer experience that far outpaced the industry, and they achieved lower selling and servicing costs.

Adam’s story is rare but not unique. Take Neesha Hathi, the head of Wealth & Advice Solutions at Schwab. She was not a technologist by training but learned the ropes through a series of earlier roles prior to her current position, including running a software subsidiary and being chief digital officer. She became formidable at transforming customer journeys and operations processes with technology. Or take Menno Van der Winden, who, when he was head of Quality and Product Development at Tata Steel, built his muscle in applying advanced analytics and AI to improve product quality and productivity in one of the largest steel plants in the world—driving step-change improvements in quality and production throughput.

These leaders exemplify the key skills that AI- and tech‑capable business leaders develop—what we are calling the “second muscle.” When business leaders master this craft, they have the ability to do the following:

• Reimagine their domain and create a transformative vision with the customer at the center. They understand customer pain points and unmet needs. They know the major sources of waste in their operations. They use creativity and pattern recognition to reimagine the business with AI—not just automate an existing workflow.
• Develop AI-enabled transformation road maps. They know how to work with domain experts and functional specialists to reimagine end‑to‑end processes through AI and technology. They turn those inputs into a comprehensive road map of sequenced use cases with clear KPIs tied to outcomes. They don’t delegate this job to IT or lower down the line in their organizations. They own it because it’s mission critical.
• Oversee tech delivery. While they are not deep technology experts, these leaders have sufficient tech depth to oversee development, help their teams prioritize work, solve problems to overcome roadblocks, and effectively challenge their thinking. They work quickly and iteratively to build scalable solutions that delight customers. And they take advantage of having cross-functional teams under their leadership to drive development effectiveness and speed.
• Lead end‑to‑end change management. Tech-capable business leaders don’t delegate the responsibility for implementing their AI solutions. They own their adoption and scaling. They are accountable not just for developing solutions but also for ensuring that these solutions deliver value. Because they have the best overall view of the end‑to‑end process being transformed, they are best placed to design and orchestrate a well-integrated change management effort.

The business leaders who develop this second muscle hold the key to your future with AI. That’s why the big (maybe the biggest) question for any CEO or board member to answer is: How many Adams, Neeshas, and Mennos does your company have?