VP of People at Gorilla | In the pursuit of employee significance | Leadership & Career Coach | Illustrator | Corporate Hippy - views expressed here are my own

I’m a tech executive who believes the future belongs to companies that combine AI capability with human intelligence.

Not AI as a silver bullet.
Not people strategy as soft culture work.
Not simplistic “do more, faster” productivity narratives.
But practical systems that help organisations make better decisions as they scale.

I’ve spent my career building and operating those systems across people, performance, operating models, and now AI. 

The work only matters if it shows up in reality; how leaders lead, how teams decide, and how companies change without losing trust.

Most recently, I led the global People function at a Series B energy tech company and co-led our early AI rollout across governance, ethics, enablement, tooling, and experimentation. 

Alongside this, I work with founders, executives, and investors as a fractional leader and advisor. I help organisations roll out AI responsibly, navigate change, and build people systems that compound growth rather than create drag.

If you’re a founder, COO, CPO or leader trying to:
- adopt AI without breaking trust or momentum
- lead change without drowning managers in process
- scale people and operating systems that actually work in the real world.

I write and speak for you.

Things I write about:

- Practical AI adoption without hype or harm
- Where human judgment still matters in everyday AI decisions
- Leading change that creates clarity and engagement, not chaos
- People systems that support growth instead of getting in the way
- Why culture breaks during scale-ups, and how to fix it

Vanessa Monsequeira

It's been a big week, folks

I'm hopping on a plane to Australia for a workation. 

On the agenda:
🌞 Surf - Sun - Seafood.
☕ A proper flat white (finally).
💜 Laughs with family and friends.

Also on the agenda:

Customer calls with Europe from my laptop .. beachside. 

Coffee catch-ups and lunches with Aussie legends. Megan Trotter Matt McFarlane Mark Lewis Mohit Midha Careen Matthews Adam Axon 

to have lots of conversations about AI, People Experience and HR Tech. 

Basically defrosting before tulip season drags me back.

See you on the flip side.

Vanessa Monsequeira - चित्रलेखा

AI Transformation and Change Leadership | Fractional VP People | Building Work as a Product | Corporate Hippy

A woman with dark curly hair and gold-rimmed glasses grins broadly at the camera, holding up an Australian passport. She's wearing a colourful plaid scarf and a red jacket, photographed in an airport terminal.

2 months ago, I had to decide to stay in-house or bet on myself and go solo.

I knew which direction pulled at me.

But I was about to play it safe: positioning myself in a category that felt comfortable, familiar and small.

I told myself I didn't have the right to play in AI.

Even though I'd led AI adoption in my last organisation.

Even though our VC asked me to present best practices and pitfalls to their portfolio companies.

The doubts were loud:
↳ “I'm not technical enough”
↳ “What about the financial risks?”
↳ “Who am I to claim this space?”
↳ “What if I am no good?”

Then I met Frans van Loef in January. 

A busy executive coach, author and former CEO. The kind of person whose calendar you don't expect to make it onto twice.

We had a mentoring conversation over a year ago.

But when we sat down at the same café, same table, it felt like no time had passed.

Like catching up with an old friend who wasn't going to let me shrink. And someone who could show me what it actually looked like to back myself.

He didn't let me get away with playing small.

Frans didn't give me a pep talk. He held up a mirror.

Not just to the last 15 months of AI work, but to 15 years of leadership, change, transformation, tech and business consulting.

The pattern was right there. I'd been doing this work all along, I just hadn't claimed it.

That conversation shifted something.

I stopped waiting for permission and started building.
(more on this every week)

Last week, I launched my business.

I help tech leaders close the gap between AI ambition and AI outcomes, without burning out their managers or losing top talent.

Since then, I've had multiple enquiries and calls.

That's what happens when someone helps you see what you've been too close to see yourself.

Building a business will never be easy.

But if there's a "shortcut", it's having someone who can reflect your capability back to you when self-doubt is doing the talking.

Then it comes down to backing yourself. FULLY.

Frans, thank you for being in my corner!


PS. I’m about to launch my newsletter on How AI is rewiring thinking, leadership, and the workforce. Get it for free: https://lnkd.in/eh_aYrzw

Close-up selfie of two people smiling warmly at the camera indoors. On the left, a man with short light brown hair and blue eyes wears a navy collared shirt. On the right, a woman with shoulder-length dark curly hair wears a light knit top, gold necklace, and colorful earrings. They are standing close together in a cozy space with exposed brick and soft natural light in the background.

Anthropic dropped their AI fluency report this week.

Two findings made me curious and hungry:

1. AI Fluency is strongly linked to iteration and refinement, not just output volume.

2. When creating outputs (e.g. documents, code), users get more directive but less evaluative.

AI is making us better but only if we use it to augment our thinking, not delegate, deliver and forget. 

I believe the answer isn't to stop using AI to create outputs.

It's to use it with critical thinking:
↳ Structure Problem Solving
↳ Analysis and Critique
↳ Decision Making 

The problem is that critical thinking is rarely taught in schools, universities, or businesses.

So we're handing people a powerful tool with no framework for how to actually think with it.

That's why I built the The Critical Thinking Sandwich:

Your thinking is the bread: Thick, sturdy, holding everything together.

The filling (meat or veg) is where the real work happens: The iteration, the critique, the refinement.

AI is the cheese: Essential, delicious, sticks things together, but never the main event.

AI is the cheese but it doesn't make the sandwich.

Your thinking does.


#criticalthinking #AI #cognitivedebt

"How to stay sharp when AI does the work" showing The Critical Thinking Sandwich — a five-layer framework for using AI without losing your edge.
Layer 1 (orange, thick): Critical Forethought. Frame the problem yourself before you prompt.
Layer 2 (yellow, thin): AI Output v1. Raw material. Not the answer.
Layer 3 (green, thick): Critical Analysis. You interrogate first, then ask AI to challenge it from multiple angles.
Layer 4 (yellow, thin): AI Output v2+. Refined and pressure tested.
Layer 5 (orange, thick): Critical Readiness. Can you defend this without AI? If not, go back into the filling.
Footer: "AI is the cheese. It doesn't make the sandwich."

IT teams are about to become everyone's problem.

Most leaders haven't realised it yet.

At a hackathon last month, Debora Gallo shared an example that I haven't stopped thinking about. 

People teams are starting to build their own tools. 

Personalised, scrappy and iterative is exactly what the business needs. 

And IT's response was awesome, but we can't maintain that. 

I've seen this movie before. 

Years ago I was brought in as a tech consultant because a company's manufacturing engineering team had started building their own systems rather than waiting in the IT queue. 

They would "dev all the way to core systems" and then throw it over the fence to IT. 

IT was getting frustrated: 
→ Those systems needed to talk to central infrastructure. 
→ They needed someone to maintain them post development. 
→ They needed security sign-off. 

But nobody had planned for it because they went around IT.

They thought IT was too slow and always said no.  

And the whole thing became an expensive, political mess to untangle. 

That was considered an edge case back then. 

"Shadow IT" was the awkward anomaly everyone quietly complained about. In the age of vibe-coding, it becomes the default. 

And the People team won't be the only ones building. 

Finance, Ops, Marketing, Sales and any function with a problem and a bit of curiosity can now ship something. 

That's genuinely exciting! 

But it's also a structural time bomb if no one is asking the harder questions. 

What leaders need to start doing: 

1️⃣ Map your org design for a world where every function can build, not just request. 

2️⃣ Set the rules now: maintenance, governance and security can't be an afterthought when every team is shipping. 

3️⃣ Audit your future roles and skills. Agentic AI and vibe-coding are rewriting what every job actually requires. 

Keen to hear if you've been doing or observing any of the above. 

#aiadoption #orgdesign #futureroles

Black background with large white serif text reading "In organizations when everyone is vibe-coding......." with the words "vibe-coding" highlighted in purple, followed by "Who will maintain our apps?" with the word "maintain" highlighted in coral orange. Vanessa Monsequeira and Intentional AI Adoption appear in small text at the bottom left and right corners.

Are you team OpenAI or Anthropic?

For me, it's Anthropic for the win. 

I love:
🧡 Claude Chat
🧡 Claude Cowork
🧡 Claude Code (still WIP)

I appreciate a tool that doesn't optimise for dopamine.

No endless suggestions designed to keep you hooked.
(Worth a listen: Lenny's Podcast with Edwin Chen, CEO of Surge)

I support co-founders who:

a) Give away 80% of their personal wealth
b) Don't donate $25M to oppressive political regimes

I support a CEO (Dario Amodei) who writes real thought leadership:

→ The Adolescence of Technology
→ Machines of Loving Grace

Are any of these founders perfect? No
Is the wealth amassed insane? Yes

But the AI bubble isn't bursting anytime soon.

And what that means for employees is non-negotiable:
Upskill on tooling, critical thinking, and ethics.

In my opinion,  🧡 Anthropic for the win on all three.

Video credit: Reuters at AI Summit India

#aiwars #techbrodisputes #AI

Have you every attended a 'conference' that changes the way you think, learn and experiment?

For me that's been PX experiences by SapienX.

Every year I learn things from fellow speakers and peers that keeps me coming back. 

Every single time I've been able to put what I've learned into action immediately.

Key highlights:

🗓️ 2024 - London

➟ How to launch people products using best practices from marketing 
➟ UX to PX applications and north star and meaningful metrics 
➟ Deep dives into service design and the double diamond, and interactive icebreakers I still steal to this day. 
➟ Everyone comes to the game of work with the same set of cards but a different set of rules from past workplaces... and we expect everyone to play the same game 

🗓️ 2025 - London and Amsterdam

➟ PX in action for performance design 
➟ PX and service design deeper dives 
➟ Practical applications of agile for people teams 
➟ The culture card game and a touch of wizardry 
➟ Experiment Design canvas - integrating all our learnings into action 
➟ Purpose at work interactive session and preview of Jessica Zwaan's new book 
➟ The future of HR turning into the future of design of work, workforce, and workflows 


🗓️ 2026 What will we see next? 

Join us at PX Live to find out.

It's going to be a cracking line-up:

Alicia Grimes
Dart Lindsley
Glenn Martin
Chris Metcalfe
Luke O'Mahoney
Thomas Forstner
JooBee Yeow, PhD (OOO)
and me Vanessa Monsequeira - चित्रलेखा

If you're: 
👉🏽 A Head of People trying to drive real impact 
👉🏽 A PX leader building capability beyond admin 
👉🏽 Someone who believes the People function can be more strategic

come join us for the fun, to learn, and to be part of the movement to redesign the future of HR and work.

It's on March 20 and it's limited to 100 practitioners.

Discount code - VANESSA-10

#peopleexperience #pxlive

Promotional banner for PX Live London featuring a diverse audience smiling and seated at a live event. Overlaid text reads: “Work is broken. Product can fix it.” Event details: “PX Live — London | March 20th.” “Limited tickets available” appears alongside a QR code. Supported by hownow, Humaans, and huggg. Sapien logo in the top left corner.

BRINTA

Revolutionizing Tax Compliance in Latin America for Global Companies

Software Engineer

Onboard Powered

Reimagining Board Gaming Moments.

Product & Technical Leadership • Design Thinking & User-Centred Design • Solution Design • Full Stack Web Development • Entrepreneurship

Co-Founder | Product & Technical Lead

Tourwriter

Powering Modern Destination Experts to Create Meaningful Local Travel

Technical & People Leadership • Product Discovery & Delivery • Team Enablement & Mentoring • Full Stack Web Development • Monolithic Architecture

Lead Software Engineer

Snapper Services Limited

Creating Excellent Experiences in Public Transport that Accelerate the Journey to a More Sustainable World.

Backend Development • Product Discovery & Delivery • Team Building & Mentoring • Technical Leadership • Solution Design • Cloud Engineering • Microservices & Serverless Architectures

Stuff

Helping Kiwis Connect and Thrive in their Communities.

Full Stack Web Development • Product Delivery • Tooling & Automation • Cloud Engineering • Clean Architecture • Microservices & Event-Driven Architectures • DevOps

Mercado Libre

Democratising Commerce and Money in Latin America.

Backend Development • Team Building & Mentoring • Solution Design • ETL & Batch Processing • Microservices & Event-Driven Architectures

Retcon

Full Stack Web Development • Software Integrations • Monolithic & Service-Oriented Architectures • Consultancy • Startup

I'm passionate about creating amazing experiences through technology. Experiences that make a difference in our world, so we build a fairer, more inclusive and sustainable one 🌱

I believe in mankind, that we can become better and accomplish the extraordinary when we walk paths together. Love to build great teams and help them move forward by unleashing the magic of collaboration, synergies and human interactions ✨️

Currently co-founding and making all things product at Onboard Powered, a social platform for those who play board games 🎲

Also building powerful tech at Brinta! On a journey to revolutionize tax compliance across the region for global companies 🚀

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