SandHax
Future-Proofing your Leadership
This is not a workshop. It's a board-level transformation event.
A SandHax Lab is a compressed capability-building cycle that begins with understanding your business, advances by accelerating your leadership team and ends with AI translated directly into operational value.
The 3 Phases of a SandHax Lab
Each Lab compresses months of strategy and capability-building into a single cycle:
understanding your business, building proof through a bespoke prototype,
developing leadership fluency and guiding you towards operational AI maturity.
PHASE 1
Business Immersion &
Prototype Build
(onsite / remote)
We learn your business.
Then we build something real.
Before you ever walk into the offsite, we take a deep dive into how your organisation creates value, how your data flows, and where the most promising AI opportunities lie.
This includes:
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Leadership interviews and context gathering
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Mapping workflows, data sources, risks and constraints
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Identifying high-value use cases
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Building a working AI prototype tailored to your world
The prototype becomes the anchor for the offsite - a tangible, contextual artefact that demystifies AI and grounds the entire experience in your reality.
Estimated duration: 1-2 weeks, depending on data access and stakeholder availability.
PHASE 2
The 48-Hour
Executive Offsite
Where leadership capability, clarity and alignment are built.
Your offsite becomes a structured learning and strategy environment where the executive team develops fluency, confidence and alignment.
During the two days, we:
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Unpack the prototype: how it works, what it reveals, and what it unlocks
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Equip the executive team with the fundamentals of AI governance, resilience and responsible adoption
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Explore decisions around data, architecture, risk and trust
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Facilitate executive development focused on judgement, imagination and psychological safety
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Run tightly designed ideation sessions to identify further AI initiatives or a full AI enablement strategy
This is where leaders shift from talking about AI to thinking in AI, equipped to make informed, strategic decisions.
PHASE 3
Post-Offsite Implementation & Capability Support
(onsite / remote)
Making the strategy real - and making AI scale.
If your organisation wants to move forward, we transition into implementation support.
This includes:
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Refining and productionising the prototype
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Establishing data and governance foundations
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Designing the operating model for AI adoption
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Supporting talent pathways and capability uplift
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Ensuring the pilot-to-scale journey succeeds
This phase is optional and modular - you take as much or as little support as you need.
Tailored to Your Needs
Because your offsite is built on top of a bespoke prototype, it becomes:
- Deeply contextual
- Evidence-based
- Action-oriented
We adapt every SandHax experience to your strategic priorities, leadership profile and organisational culture.
Our modular design allows us to calibrate for scope, depth and budget - ensuring that your investment produces a measurable impact on performance and engagement.
So What?
You gain alignment, momentum and a plan you can actually execute.
SandHax turns curiosity into capability. After 48 hours, your team knows what AI can do, what it can't, where the value is and how to act on it - with a prototype to prove the point.
You leave prepared to move from pilot mode to real operational adoption.
Example Lab Scenarios
Example Lab Scenario 1
AI Deployment Under Regulatory and Reputational Risk
The problem
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The executive team is under pressure to deploy generative AI across customer-facing functions
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Legal, Risk and Compliance raise unresolved concerns around data exposure, explainability and accountability
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Momentum exists, but no shared decision exists on where AI use becomes unsafe
How SandHax helps
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We design a controlled Lab scenario around a real, imminent AI deployment decision
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Confidence ranges, data gaps and failure modes are made explicit and visible
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Executives are guided to articulate decision thresholds and ownership, not tool enthusiasm
The outcome
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Clear boundaries on which AI use cases proceed and which are paused or rejected
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Explicit accountability assigned to named decision owners
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A defensible executive position the Board is willing to stand behind
Example Lab Scenario 2
Automation vs Human Judgement in High-Stakes Decisions
The problem
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Operations and Technology teams push for automation to increase speed and efficiency
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Business leaders worry about loss of judgement in decisions that are irreversible or customer-critical
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Disagreement exists, but remains abstract and politically charged
How SandHax helps
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We frame the Lab around a specific decision flow currently under debate
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Automation benefits are weighed against error impact, escalation paths and failure recovery
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The Lab makes explicit where speed adds value and where human judgement remains essential
The outcome
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A shared decision architecture separating automated, augmented and human-owned decisions
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Reduced friction between Technology and Business leadership
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Faster execution without increasing operational or reputational risk
Example Lab Scenario 3
AI Strategy Without Executive Alignment
The problem
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Multiple AI initiatives are underway across functions, with no coherent decision logic
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Executives express concern about duplication, risk exposure and unclear returns
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The organisation looks active, but cannot explain why certain AI bets are being made
How SandHax helps
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We use the Lab to surface competing assumptions and decision criteria
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Scenarios are stress-tested against strategic priorities, failure tolerance and accountability
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The focus shifts from “AI ambition” to decision consequence
The outcome
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A shared executive understanding of which AI decisions matter most
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Clear stop / start / continue decisions across initiatives
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Strategic alignment without adding governance overhead
Investment
Our engagements vary depending on organisational complexity, data maturity and prototype scope.
Typical SandHax Labs begin at:
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£40K - £50K for a Prototype + 48 hour Executive Offsite
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£50K - £80K for a full SandHax Lab (all three phases)
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Enterprise programmes start from £80K+
Each Lab is tailored. Final pricing depends on your data landscape, leadership goals and implementation needs.
SandHax focuses on the design, preparation and facilitation of high-impact leadership offsites. Venue and accommodation arrangements are normally contracted directly by our clients, with our support where helpful.
Executive Q&A: Data, Risk & Delivery
Do you need access to our data to run a SandHax Lab?
No - not necessarily.
SandHax Labs are designed to deliver value even without direct access to internal data.
Where data is used, it is:
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limited to what is strictly necessary
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agreed in advance
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often anonymised, masked or synthetic
In many engagements, no client data is accessed at all.
What kind of AI prototype do you build during the preparation phase?
We build a lightweight, non-production prototype designed to:
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make AI tangible for leaders
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spark informed discussion
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support decision-making
It is not a finished product, not customer-facing and not integrated into core systems unless explicitly agreed in a separate implementation phase.
Could this introduce security or compliance risks?
SandHax Labs are deliberately designed to avoid introducing new operational risk.
By default:
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no production systems are touched
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no automated decisions are deployed
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no persistent access is retained
All work is covered by mutual NDAs and standard professional insurances, and conducted in line with applicable data protection regulations (including GDPR).
Where does the data live during the engagement?
Wherever possible, data remains within your environment.
Depending on the engagement, this may involve:
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a client-hosted sandbox
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read-only, time-limited access
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anonymised or synthetic datasets
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or no internal data at all
Any access granted is revoked at the end of the preparation phase.
What happens to our data after the offsite?
SandHax does not retain client data beyond the engagement.
Once the preparation phase and offsite are complete:
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access is removed
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working materials are archived or deleted
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no client data is reused or repurposed
This is explicitly agreed upfront.
Does this evaluate the CTO or technology team?
No.
SandHax offsites are explicitly designed to support the CTO and technology leadership by strengthening executive-level understanding and decision quality around AI, data and governance.
The intent is not to assess technical performance, but to ensure the executive team can engage in informed, strategic dialogue - reducing misalignment, unrealistic expectations and downstream friction for technology leaders.
Is this suitable for regulated or risk-sensitive organisations?
Yes.
SandHax Labs have been designed specifically to work within:
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enterprise governance structures
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regulated environments
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organisations with high data sensitivity
For highly regulated contexts, we run no-data or conceptual labs that still deliver clarity, alignment and strategic direction.
How is this different from a traditional workshop or hackathon?
SandHax Labs are:
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executive-level, not team-level
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decision-oriented, not idea-oriented
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grounded in your business reality, not generic exercises
We don’t optimise for output volume.
We optimise for leadership clarity and momentum.
Who is accountable during a SandHax Lab?
Clear accountability is built in.
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SandHax leads facilitation, structure and technical exploration
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Your leadership team retains ownership of decisions
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No responsibility is transferred without explicit agreement
This keeps governance clean and confidence high.
SandHax Labs are designed to help leaders explore AI and innovation without exposing the organisation to unnecessary risk.
Ready to design your secure SandHax experience?
Let's begin with a confidential Scoping call to define what success looks like for your executive team.