Moving beyond the AI hype: Why FOIL partnered with Solvd Together
Seemingly overnight a new wave of AI "experts" has appeared, each promoting the latest tool as the single fix for a transformation problem that is, often, more human than technical. FOIL has watched this unfold with scepticism; the pattern echoes the early days of data platforms that promised instant single source of truth without any business use case.
Most organisations remain focused on tools. And not the leadership team that can answer, together, what AI actually means for their industry, their business model and their people. Individually, most leaders already have a view; collectively, those views rarely line up. Four questions tend to go unanswered as a group:
Is AI an existential threat to our business?
What does it make possible that we are not yet pursuing?
What do I need to do differently?
And how can we prepare our people for the future?
It is the absence of a collective answer, not the absence of technology, that stalls transformation and duplicates spend. Closing that gap is why FOIL has partnered with Solvd Together, and why the two organisations have built native., a leadership programme designed for exactly this problem.
Why Solvd Together
FOIL set out to find a partner genuinely expert in behavioural science, culture and organisational change. Solvd Together's team are not change management generalists; they are behavioural scientists and learning and development consultants who understand how to deliver lasting, meaningful change, which lets them help a business move through a change journey rather than simply describe one. FOIL brought the practitioner credibility: an enterprise data and AI consultancy built on an anti-consulting ethos, working with organisations to build the internal capability needed to sustain measurable value, from strategy through to production.
The fit runs deeper than complementary skill sets, though. What makes this partnership different is how closely our two teams align in how we operate and engage clients day to day, staying authentic to how each naturally works rather than adjusting to accommodate the other. That authenticity is part of what makes the partnership land so well with clients, and restoring the human touch, rather than treating it as a soft add-on, is a large part of what it is built to do.
Introducing native.
The partnership's first joint proposition, native., is a leadership programme that takes organisations from reactive to autonomic (FOILs vision for organisations), built around three outcomes: a clear understanding of where the organisation and market stand on AI today; a definitive view of the gaps in alignment and the course of action required; and concrete practice in building an adaptable workforce.
The programme is delivered top-down by design. FOIL's data and AI maturity framework shows that most organisations sit around stage two of five, Ad-hoc & Exploratory, typically needing around twelve months to progress a single stage. Without leadership alignment at the top, that progression stalls. native. is designed and delivered by practitioners, built as a bespoke, consumer-grade experience for each organisation's executives rather than a standardised course.
Governance and data integrity sit inside that same conversation, not filed away as a technical afterthought. Auditing data quality, understanding where bias enters a process, and being transparent about how AI is used are what determines whether people, and customers, extend an organisation the benefit of the doubt as AI becomes more embedded in decision-making.
AI maturity framework
A Track record to build on
Solvd Together has delivered leadership development for organisations including Novo Nordisk, Vodafone and Heathrow Airport. FOIL has delivered data and AI transformation across a number of sectors, including infrastructure (Amey Plc), insurance (Reassured), recruitment (Alexander Mann Services) among others, taking clients from strategy through to production and leaving behind teams that can sustain what has been built. The Reassured engagement reframed AI from a threat into an opportunity, and our twelve-month global LeadAI programme for one highstreet retailer reached 700 leaders.
In Mish's words
"What I am incredibly excited about is how well we work together. The way we operate, the way we talk, the way we engage with customers, it is remarkably similar. Solvd Together are not change management generalists, they are behavioural scientists and learning and development consultants who understand the change agenda, and that is what lets them help a business actually move through a change journey, by building an agile mindset and wrapping the right learning and development around it. I have looked for the right partner before and struggled to find one. With Charlie and his team, we found a natural fit. We can both stay completely authentic to who we are, and that message lands with clients. We are not trying to be something we are not."- Mish Naik, Head of Strategy, FOIL
What this means for FOIL's clients
Productivity-focused AI is necessary but insufficient. The organisations that lead will rethink how they operate, with intelligence embedded in the business rather than consulted as an afterthought. The Solvd x FOIL partnership starts where every transformation actually succeeds or fails: with the leadership team.
For more information on native. and how it applies to your leadership team, contact the FOIL team today.