San Francisco Bay Area Chapter In Person Event: Executives Roundtable Discussion: Governing Innovation - AI Adoption and Portfolio Prioritization in Practice

This exclusive RAPS-SF Executives event brings together Vice Presidents and senior leaders for an opportunity to connect, share insights, and participate in guided round‑table discussions.

As artificial intelligence rapidly moves from experimentation to enterprise adoption, and resource constraints continue to intensify, organizations are being challenged to make smarter decisions—both in how they deploy AI and how they invest in their innovation portfolios. This event brings explore two of the most pressing capability gaps facing early and mid‑size companies today.

The first discussion focuses on AI Implementation and Governance, addressing the real‑world challenges organizations are encountering as they operationalize AI. Participants will discuss how companies are establishing guardrails, governance models, and risk frameworks to ensure responsible, compliant, and scalable AI adoption, while still enabling speed and innovation. The discussion will also highlight practical AI use cases being deployed across functions, offering insight into what is delivering value today—and what remains aspirational.

The second discussion shifts to Portfolio Selection and Prioritization, examining how growing organizations are designing stage‑gate models and decision frameworks to focus limited resources on the right initiatives. Participants will share how early and mid‑size companies are structuring governance, criteria, and cross‑functional decision‑making to balance strategic alignment, technical feasibility, and commercial impact—while avoiding portfolio sprawl and downstream execution risk.

Together, these round tale discussions will provide a grounded, experience‑based dialogue on how organizations can bring discipline to innovation—using governance not as a constraint, but as an enabler of smarter, faster, and more confident decisions.

Learning Objectives

By attending this event, participants will be able to:

Understand how organizations are moving from AI experimentation to real‑world implementation, including the practical challenges encountered in scaling AI responsibly.
Identify effective AI governance and guardrail models, and how companies are balancing risk management, compliance, and innovation velocity.
Recognize high‑value AI use cases currently being deployed across organizations, and distinguish between proof‑of‑concept efforts and solutions delivering measurable impact.
Learn how early and mid‑size companies design portfolio selection and prioritization frameworks, including stage‑gate models that support strategic focus.
Evaluate portfolio decision criteria and governance structures used to align innovation investments with business strategy, capacity, and risk tolerance.
Compare different approaches to balancing speed, discipline, and resource constraints when advancing projects from concept through launch.
Apply practical insights from peer experiences to strengthen internal decision‑making around AI investments and portfolio management.

Agenda

4:00-4:15pm Welcome and registration

4:15-5:15 pm Round table discussion on AI governance and implementation
5:15-5:45 pm Networking Break (Late registration)

5:45 - 6:00 pm Announcements - RAPS-SF, E-WIB, IPM and MBC Biolabs
6:00-7:00 pm Round table discussion on Portfolio Strategy: Selection & Prioritization

7:00-8:00pm Post event discussion/networking

*Appetizers and beverages will be provided.

Location

MBC Bio Labs
1030 Brittan Ave.
San Carlos, CA 94070

Cancellations and Refunds

RAPS reserves the right to cancel this program at its sole discretion. RAPS will not be responsible for travel or other costs incurred due to cancellation. All cancellation requests must be submitted in writing to [email protected]. Cancellations will receive a full refund minus a 20% administrative fee. RAPS is unable to accept cancellations by phone.

Substitutions

Paid registration substitutions may be accepted with written approval from RAPS for requests received before the start of the event. To transfer a registration, email [email protected] with the event title, name of the original registrant and the contact information for the new attendee.