AI Incident Response Arena: AI governance for boards and executives
Practise your board’s response to an AI incident before you need it
A 90-minute live simulation for directors and executives. You make real decisions under simulated pressure, then see where your decision rights, escalation pathways and information flows hold, and where they do not.
Online, in person or hybrid. Sessions available 26 October to 4 December 2026, then from the week of 11 January 2027.
Designed and led by Robine Stephenson, a management consultant and executive leader with more than 25 years across technology, digital and regulatory environments.
An AI agent can act on its own.
Accountability can’t.
What Australia has just seen
In June, an OpenAI agent reportedly bypassed controls on a Medicare statistics portal and accessed non-public files. Services Australia was notified on 10 September, through a general email inbox.
The Prime Minister called the delay unacceptable and set up a taskforce. No personal information is believed to have been accessed.
For a board, the hard part starts after the agent acts.
Source: ABC News, 24 September 2026. Read the ABC report on the Medicare portal
Three questions every board should be able to answer
- Who has authority to act?
- What do you stop?
- Who needs to know, and how quickly?
These are the questions your board and executives answer live in the Arena, with the clock running.
What APRA expects
In April, APRA wrote to banks, insurers and super trustees. Its message was plain. AI governance, risk management and assurance are not keeping pace with adoption, and boards are leaning too heavily on vendor presentations.
- Board understanding of AI, enough to challenge and oversee
- Clear ownership and accountability for AI use
- Humans involved in high-risk decisions
- An inventory of where AI is in use
Source: APRA letter on AI risk management and governance, 30 April 2026. Directors’ duties also apply to how AI is used, whether or not your entity is APRA regulated.
Governance is not proven by policies or vendor assurances.
It is proven by the decisions people make under pressure.
How the 90 minutes works
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Step 1
An incident arrives
An agent has acted outside the boundaries and mandate you assumed. Customers are affected. The regulator is asking questions.
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Step 2
You decide under pressure
What do you do? What do you stop? Who has authority to act? What must you disclose?
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Step 3
You see where it holds
Your board names what it can identify, and what to change.
Read the reel as text
An agent may act autonomously. Accountability does not.
The Arena: AI governance for boards and executives. A live simulation. Real decisions under simulated pressure.
The situation. Incoming signal: an agent acted on its own, outside the assumed boundaries and mandate. Customers are affected. The regulator is asking questions.
What do you do? What do you stop? Who has authority to act? What must you disclose?
What your board can identify: unclear decision rights, gaps in escalation and information flows, and governance changes to test next.
Practise your collective strategic decision making before the stakes get real.
What your board leaves with
- Where decision rights are unclear
- Where escalation and information flows have gaps
- Which governance changes to test next
What comes next
If the Arena shows changes worth making, the next step is a Practice Partnership. Straforma works with your executive team to put those changes into practice, so strategy and governance hold when things move fast.
Getting started is quick
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1. Book a conversation
Choose a time with Robine or her team. We talk through your board, how AI is used in your organisation and what you want to test.
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2. Choose your format
Online, in person or hybrid, to suit your directors and executives.
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3. Run the Arena
Ninety minutes with your board and executives, then your findings.
Investment: $7,499 plus GST
Available: 26 October to 4 December 2026, then from the week of 11 January 2027
Founder and Managing Director, Straforma
Robine Stephenson has sat on the executive side of these questions
Robine brings more than 25 years of technology, digital and regulatory experience as a management consultant and executive leader across numerous regulated and complex environments. As Chief of Staff and CIO of an APRA-regulated friendly society, she worked with the CEO and Board on who decides, who escalates and what the board needs to know. Now she designs and runs The Arena for boards and executives.
- Chief of Staff and CIO at KeyInvest, an APRA-regulated friendly society
- Led programs aligned to CPS 230, CPS 234 and the Financial Accountability Regime
- Remit covered governance, IT strategy, information security, transformation, and people and culture
- Developed and facilitated The Arena for a Victorian justice sector leadership team
- Strategy consulting across start-ups, government departments, not-for-profits and technology companies
- Founder of Straforma, which runs The Arena with leadership teams and business owners across Geelong and Victoria
A fellow CEO on working with Straforma
“She and her team don’t hand you a strategy; they build your capacity to make sound calls when the pressure is real and the path isn’t obvious.”
CEO, Geelong Chamber of Commerce
July 2026
That capacity is what the Arena practises, with your board and executives in the room.
Read Jeremy’s full endorsement
“What sets Straforma apart isn’t a workshop or a framework, it’s the calibre of judgement they bring into a room.
Robine Stephenson has spent decades inside complex organisations and it shows.
She and her team don’t hand you a strategy; they build your capacity to make sound calls when the pressure is real and the path isn’t obvious.
For businesses thinking seriously about where they’re headed, through growth, disruption or structural change, Straforma is the kind of partner who helps you shape that direction with clarity and confidence, not just react to it.
We’re proud to have them connected to our Chamber.”
Pressure reveals your form.
If you are a director or CEO, put your governance to the test before the stakes are real. Book a conversation and we will talk through what your board needs to practise.
Or email hello@straforma.com.au
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