Governance Beats Gadgets — L.E.K. Consulting’s Adamantia Velonis on Getting Enterprise AI Right at Scale

Advising the Advisors: AI in Consulting Unlocked

In this episode of Advising the Advisors: AI in Consulting Unlocked, host Bolu Ben-Adeola sits down with Adamantia Velonis, Director of IT Strategy & Communications at L.E.K. Consulting, to unpack why most AI programs fail to scale and what organizations must do differently to drive meaningful results.

Rather than focusing on tools or trends, Adamantia shares how to build the infrastructure, governance, and culture needed to translate AI pilots into enterprise value. From failed adoption cycles to change fatigue, she outlines the real blockers that stall transformation and how to navigate them with strategy, alignment, and execution.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why “successful pilot” doesn’t mean scalable solution and how to tell the difference
• How lack of alignment between innovation teams and business strategy kills momentum
• The critical role of use case cataloguing in managing risk, ensuring governance, and driving results
• Why AI change management must be continuous, not one-off
• A real-world example of governance boosting proposal win rates by 10–12%
• How organizations can shift from chasing tools to rethinking entire workflows with AI
  

Adamantia Velonis is the Director of IT Strategy & Communications at L.E.K. Consulting, where she leads enterprise-wide transformation initiatives at the intersection of technology, law, and regulation. As an Australian-qualified lawyer with deep expertise in AI governance, change management, and IT strategy, she helps global firms adopt emerging technologies responsibly and at scale. Adamantia has designed AI governance frameworks, led regulatory readiness programs for the EU AI Act, and implemented risk-based assessment models to align innovation with compliance. Her work focuses on bridging business priorities with tech execution, ensuring that digital transformation doesn’t just move fast, but moves right.

Highlights:

• [02:20] AI Strategy Is the Wrong Question
  Many organizations are obsessed with building an "AI strategy" but Adamantia reframes the question entirely. Instead of starting with tools or pilots, she urges leaders to ask, “How do we stay competitive in 2025 and beyond?” She explains why pilot success often leads to false confidence, and how enterprises confuse experimentation with transformation. If AI investments don’t connect to fundamental shifts in how you operate and deliver value, they’re unlikely to scale.
  
• [10:09] Use Cases Are Strategy
  One of the most overlooked, high-leverage activities in enterprise AI adoption is simply cataloguing use cases. Adamantia outlines how this practice not only surfaces innovation opportunities but also reveals blind spots in governance, risk management, and strategic alignment. Without visibility into how AI is being used, leadership can't measure impact, manage risk, or make informed decisions. Documenting use cases isn't busywork, it's foundational to scaling responsibly.
  
• [15:58] Good Governance Equals Higher Win Rates
  Governance is often seen as a blocker to innovation, but Adamantia flips that narrative. She shares a case study of an organization that, after developing a rigorous AI governance model, improved proposal acceptance rates by 10–12%. By aligning AI use with clear risk controls and leadership buy-in, they created space to double down on what was working. The result wasn’t just more output — it was better business outcomes.
  
• [[19:00] What Hasn’t Changed
  AI can accelerate content production, automate research, and unlock insights, but it doesn’t replace human judgment. Adamantia argues that asking the right questions, managing stakeholders, and navigating ambiguity remain irreplaceable skills. In fact, AI may raise the stakes by amplifying poor thinking if leaders aren’t careful. For consultants, it’s still your mindset, not just your toolset, that drives long-term value.
  

More Highlights from this Episode:

• [06:50] Build vs. Buy - And the Hidden Costs of DIY AI
• [12:54] Transformation is a Continuous Muscle
  

If your business is investing in AI but struggling to see real impact, this episode is for you. Discover the hard lessons, the breakthroughs, and the strategies that separate AI success from failure.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts.

Episode Resources:

• Adamantia Velonis on LinkedIn
• L.E.K. Consulting Website

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