Head of AI Certificate Program · Munich Business School

Head of AI: Qualification for the strategic leadership and implementation of AI in the company.

As Head of AI you are not a user of AI, but the person who decides where AI is used, what value it creates and what risks it brings.

Three challenge workshops in Munich, Lisbon and Amberg

6months
18days of input
9.9Keuros in AI qualification
1registration · start after receipt
18max. participants per cohort

What you must be able to do and own as “Head of AI”

Four things the programme delivers.

In this programme you develop the skills to steer AI strategically, take organisations along and make impact demonstrable.

Lead AI initiatives strategically.

Responsibility for AI at company or division level. Prioritising use cases by value contribution, risk and scalability. Giving clear direction, even amid uncertainty and resistance.

Lead at decision-maker level.

Taking responsibility without micromanagement. Deciding clearly under pressure and with incomplete information. Leading experts without formal authority. Creating acceptance for AI decisions in management.

Real decision situations instead of theory.

Real leadership situations from AI transformation projects. Decisions with consequences, no simulations. Weighing business value, ethics and governance. No model solution, no “right or wrong”.

Positioning as Head of AI.

18 days of executive input: AI Business Manager (foundation) 10 days, strategy and leadership workshops 7 days, Head-of-AI pitch and certificate 1 day.

You become visible as a leader for AI.

Executive education programme with a university certificate from Munich Business School

Why the Head of AI works

As a “Head of AI” what counts is not what you promise, but what you are accountable for.

“The biggest value was the practical relevance: going out and learning things that are in no textbook.”

Oliver LammersVP IT / CIO, iwis

“The decisive learning moment was: transformation cannot be ordered. You have to win people over.”

Alexander SchnürerCFO & MD, Westhouse Group

“New leadership means: reduce complexity and create impact.”

Marco SteidelHead of IT & Digital Transformation

All voices come from leaders.

From leaders at management and C-level who have completed the programme. AI and digital transformation fundamentally change companies. But their impact only shows where leaders take responsibility: in real decision situations, in tasks that challenge and stay, and in honest feedback from outside. Videos in German.

Oliver Lammers

VP IT / CIO, iwis

Alexander Schnürer

CFO & MD, Westhouse Group

Marco Steidel

Head of IT & Digital Transformation

What is it about?

The Head of AI is a leadership programme for people who don’t just want to use AI, but to own, prioritise and steer it strategically. You develop into a leader who positions AI at division or company level, prepares decisions and sets viable directions under uncertainty. You build a sound understanding of AI, generative AI, automation and AI agents as the basis for resilient decisions.

What do you get concretely?

Leadership competence for AI-based decisions.

  • Leading AI topics at division or company level
  • Positioning LLMs, automation and AI agents at decision-maker level
  • Prioritising initiatives by strategic value, risk and impact
  • Responsibility for direction, acceptance and implementation

Leadership when AI raises speed and complexity

  • Taking responsibility without dominating
  • Staying clear under pressure and technological complexity
  • Translating AI potential into clear decision foundations
  • Deciding and acting fast in large organisations

What is included?

18 days of total input. Experience-based leadership formats: reflection, honest feedback and personal development.

  • AI Business Manager: 10 days (AI and methods foundation)
  • 3 challenge event workshops: 7 days
  • New Leadership Challenge: 1 day

What can you do afterwards?

  • You become visible as a leader for AI
  • You can position AI strategically on a sound basis, not just implement it
  • You gain confidence in decision situations under pressure
  • You lead people through uncertainty, change and transformation

The programme

Three modules, three challenge workshops.

The AI Business Manager forms the professional foundation. The Head of AI focuses on decision, leadership and responsibility.

Fundamentals · 10 days · approx. 3–4 hours per week

Fundamentals for your role as “Head of AI”

The AI Business Manager is the twelve-week foundation for your role as Head of AI. In a well-thought-out mix of asynchronous tutorials, live sessions and practical tasks you build a resilient understanding of artificial intelligence.

  • From generative AI and prompting to automation and AI agents
  • Work along real business questions
  • Your own learning and implementation concept for your professional context
  • Easy to integrate into a demanding working day

This creates the professional confidence you need not only to use AI, but to assess, prioritise and own it.

Mentor explaining at the laptop in a live session

New AI Leadership · 1 day

New AI Leadership

In New AI Leadership you experience what it means to act as Head of AI at decision-maker level. Top managers share their real success principles from practice.

  • How leadership works under uncertainty, how speed arises and how AI turns into impact
  • Not tools, but attitude, responsibility and decisiveness
  • Using speedboats, impact, passion and power deliberately, without dominating
  • Impulses reflected together and translated into a clear framework for action

No frontal lecture, but inspiration with consequences.

Top manager speaking with a microphone to the group

Event workshops · 7 days in person

Three event challenge workshops

For many participants the three event challenge workshops are the emotional and substantive highlight of the programme. Here it shows what it really means to decide, lead and take responsibility as Head of AI.

  • The task is only announced on the day of the workshop
  • No preparation, no slides, no model solution
  • Interdisciplinary teams, time pressure, incomplete information
  • AI, leadership, communication and collaboration interact

Many participants say in hindsight: “You don’t forget these workshops.”

Workshop round at the table

Munich · The weight of the decision

Munich: decisions with real consequences

You are led into a real leadership situation in which no preparation applies and there are no clear answers.

  • Clarity, attitude and the ability to visibly stand for a decision, even against opposition
  • Accompanied by two experienced C-level leaders
  • Challenge worked on in a team, tensions intended and reflected
  • Attitude, decision logic and impact are mirrored and assessed by the jury
Working at the flipchart during the Munich challenge

Lisbon · Opening the way

Lisbon: winning people for new paths

What it means to win people for new paths when standing still is no longer an option. Economic pressure, uncertainty and inner resistance meet.

  • Not assertiveness, but creating meaning, giving orientation, building trust
  • Leadership in times of fundamental change
  • Motivation when there are no easy answers
  • Goal: a convincing narrative of the future that takes people along
Participants in conversation at an evening event

Amberg · Proving potential

Amberg: substantiating potential

Substantiating entrepreneurial potential where neither hype nor obvious growth levers give orientation. Beyond metropolitan logic, substance counts more than vision.

  • Recognising real, unmet needs
  • Developing usage concepts with actual added value
  • Justifying the economic logic in a traceable and resilient way
  • Structuring opportunities so they withstand critical scrutiny
Small group work at Loft 18 in Amberg

C-level jury · 5 board members and managing directors

C-level jury: the feedback you no longer get anywhere else.

In the everyday life of top managers, feedback is rarely honest. Too much is at stake, too many roles, expectations and political considerations. In the Leadership Challenge Workshops we deliberately break with exactly this pattern.

You present to a C-level jury of board members, managing directors and experienced decision-makers. People who know responsibility not from books, but from their own experience. You get no polite nodding and no applause, but feedback that is clear, direct and respectful. But not embellished. This is exactly the feedback that creates focus, attitude and clarity. Because it is honest. And because you hardly ever get it anymore.

Stefan Neumann

Stefan Neumann

Interim CFO

“At C-level, applause doesn’t help. What moves you forward is honest feedback from people who know responsibility. As CFO and supervisory board member I learned to make decisions under pressure. That is exactly the experience that counts here.”
Oliver Lammers

Oliver Lammers

CIO, iwis

“AI is not decided by tools, but by clarity at board level. As CIO I am responsible for IT, digitalisation and implementation. That is exactly the perspective I bring here.”
Andreas Hofmann

Andreas Hofmann

Former CMO Hyundai, executive search partner

“At C-level it is not about potential, but about fit. As an executive search partner I have seen over decades which decisions hold and which careers fail because of them.”
Roland Kölbl

Roland Kölbl

Managing Director, Thalia

“Strategy only becomes real when it works in the market. As a managing director with P&L responsibility I know that good decisions have to show impact: with customers, employees and in the results.”
Horst Brinkmann

Horst Brinkmann

CEO, Stabilo

“Leadership means enduring contradictions. As CEO of a traditional company in digital transformation I know that the future does not come from tools, but from clear decisions between preserving and renewing.”

Cooperation partners

Backed by strong partners.

The organisations listed below are cooperation partners of the AI Programme Certificates of Munich Business School.

Certified by

Munich Business School

A recognised university certificate, not a tool badge or course certificate: a genuine academic qualification at leadership level.

Further cooperation partners

Management Forum Starnberg BFB — Bundesverband der Freien Berufe FOX Group Senator Executive Search Partners Institut Neue Mobilität Talk Concrete Lehmanns Fachinformationen Thalia
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