AI Governance Career Lab · Founding Cohort

Turn the experience you already have into AI governance capability in 90 days.

A 12-week applied program for cybersecurity, GRC, privacy, audit, compliance, risk, and data governance professionals. No coding. You leave with a portfolio that proves you can do the work.

Book your fit call

A 30-minute fit conversation. No pitch, no pressure.

Adam DiStefano, program lead of the AI Governance Career Lab
Adam DiStefano Creator of the ACR Standard CISSP · C-CISO · MS Cybersecurity LinkedIn Website X YouTube GitHub

Cohort starts

January 4, 2027

Founding seats

Limited to 25

Format

12 weeks, live

Enrollment closes

January 2, 2027

The Problem

AI governance roles are opening. The people filling them can show applied work.

Every enterprise standing up AI is creating governance work: inventories, risk assessments, policies, vendor reviews, oversight. The roles are real, and they are going to practitioners who can demonstrate the work, not just describe it.

Courses teach terminology. Certifications test recall. Neither produces a single artifact a hiring manager can read. So experienced professionals with a decade of adjacent work behind them lose out to a thin credential and a good interview story.

The gap is not knowledge. It is evidence. The Lab closes that gap by having you build the evidence, piece by piece, the way the work is actually done inside an enterprise.

  • Hiring managers ask for work product“Show me a risk assessment you ran. Show me the policy you wrote.” A test score does not answer that question.
  • Your experience already countsSecurity, GRC, privacy, audit, and risk work transfers directly. It needs translation into AI governance terms, not replacement.
  • The window is open nowThese roles are being defined as they are filled. The people who arrive with applied proof set the standard.

What You Build

Twelve portfolio artifacts. One connected body of work.

Everything is built on a single fictional enterprise case study, so the pieces connect: the inventory feeds the risk assessment, the risk assessment feeds the policy, the policy feeds the roadmap. You finish with a portfolio that reads like a year of real governance work.

01

Weeks 1–4

Translate Your Experience

Ground yourself in how AI systems actually work and where your existing expertise maps onto governance roles.

  • AI systems fundamentals — how models, data, and deployments create governance obligations
  • Frameworks and regulation — the standards and rules employers are hiring against
  • Gap analysis — your experience, audited against real AI governance role requirements

02

Weeks 5–8

Applied Governance

The core operating system of an enterprise AI governance function, built end to end on the case study.

  • AI system inventory
  • Intake process
  • Risk classification model
  • Risk assessment
  • Risk register
  • Governance policy
  • Vendor review
  • Committee charter
  • RACI
  • Incident response procedure

03

Weeks 9–12

Evidence and Positioning

Turn the work into proof, and the proof into a career campaign aimed at the roles you want.

  • Executive communication — presenting governance findings to leadership
  • Governance roadmap — a phased plan an enterprise could execute
  • Portfolio case study — your body of work, presented as one narrative
  • Career campaign — resume, LinkedIn, and interview preparation built on the portfolio
Why a case study? Real governance work is confidential, so most practitioners can never show theirs. The fictional enterprise removes that barrier: every artifact you build is yours to publish, share with employers, and walk through in an interview.

How It Runs

Live, weekly, and built for people with day jobs.

Live Sessions

12 weekly sessions, Wednesdays at 8:00 PM ET

Working sessions, not lectures. You bring the artifact you are building; we review, pressure-test, and sharpen it together.

Materials

Lifetime access

Every template, session recording, and resource stays yours permanently, along with the frameworks behind each artifact.

Community

A cohort of peers, permanently

Lifetime access to the Lab community: practitioners making the same transition, sharing roles, reviews, and hard-won lessons.

Program Lead

Adam DiStefano

Director of AI Security and creator of the ACR Standard for runtime AI control. The Lab is built from the governance work he runs inside a public company.

Headshot of Greg Crowley

Advisor

Greg Crowley

LinkedIn Website

Advisor to the Lab, reviewing the program against what enterprise security and governance leadership actually demands.

Headshot of Tia Hopkins

Advisor

Tia Hopkins

LinkedIn Website

Advisor to the Lab, bringing a practitioner and leadership lens to the curriculum and the career campaign.

The Honest Comparison

Three ways to make this transition. One produces evidence.

This Program

AI Governance Career Lab

$997 founding cohort

  • Applied: 12 portfolio artifacts built on an enterprise case study
  • Live: 12 weekly working sessions with review of your work
  • Positioning included: resume, LinkedIn, and interview campaign
  • Lifetime materials and community access

You finish with proof a hiring manager can read, question, and verify.

The Credential Route

IAPP AI Governance Cert

~$1,000+

  • Theory-heavy: terminology, frameworks, and exam preparation
  • Self-paced: no cohort, no review of applied work
  • No portfolio: you finish with a credential, not work product
  • No positioning support

A legitimate credential. It certifies what you know. It does not show what you can do.

The Solo Route

Figuring It Out Alone

$0, paid for in months

  • Unstructured: scattered articles, courses, and guesswork
  • No feedback: nobody pressure-tests your artifacts
  • No sequence: hard to know what employers actually screen for
  • No deadline: most solo efforts quietly stall

Possible, and some people do it. Most take a year to get where the cohort gets in 90 days.

The Founding Cohort

Twenty-five seats. Founding pricing, locked.

The first cohort is deliberately small. Every member gets their work reviewed, their questions answered in session, and direct access to the program lead and advisors. That does not scale past 25, so it does not try to.

Founding members lock founding pricing for future cohorts and programs. When the price rises for cohort two, yours does not.

  • Cohort size25 members, maximum
  • StartsJanuary 4, 2027
  • Enrollment closesJanuary 2, 2027
  • SessionsWednesdays, 8:00 PM ET
  • AccessLifetime materials and community

Founding Tuition

$997 one-time

or

3 payments of $332 monthly

Founding pricing is locked for members across future cohorts. Cohort two will not be offered at this price.

Book your fit call
14-day satisfaction guarantee Join the cohort, attend the first sessions, start the work. If the Lab is not the right fit within the first 14 days, you get a full refund. No forms, no exit interview.

Next Step

Book the call. Decide with a clear head.

The fit call is a conversation, not a pitch. We look at your background, where you want to land, and whether the Lab is the fastest honest route there. The cohort is kept small and every member is chosen, so if it is not right, you will hear that on the call too.

Book your fit call

Enrollment closes January 2, 2027. The cohort starts January 4.