Singapore Founding Cohort 2026  |  20 selected participants  |  Applications close 03 September 2026
Singapore Founding Cohort  |  September 2026

AI Chief of Staff Programme

Become exceptionally capable with AI, and become exceptionally valuable because of it.

Develop a rare combination of AI capability, systems thinking and organisational judgement that organisations are increasingly in search for.

You do not need a Chief of Staff title, for professionals with the curiosity, judgement and drive to help scale AI across your organisation.

Programme Director
Huy Nguyen Trieu
Practical work
Four applied outputs
Post-programme support
Founding Cohort Network and 90-day implementation clinic

AI is creating a new capability divide between professionals

Access to AI is now common. The ability to use it with depth, structure and judgement is not. The programme is built to move you from the second level to the third.

Most professionals are on the second level and stall there. They get faster at the work they already do, while the work itself stays the same shape. The gap that matters is not between people who use AI and people who do not. It is between people who improve their own output and people who can change how the work is done.

Your value will not come from having access to AI. It will come from what you can reliably do with it.
01

The occasional AI user

Uses AI for prompts, summaries and isolated tasks. Gains useful productivity, but stays dependent on the quality of each individual interaction.

02

The AI-capable professional

Uses AI systematically across research, analysis, communication and execution. Builds reusable workflows and materially improves the quality and speed of professional work.

03
Where the programme takes you

The AI Chief of Staff

Combines advanced personal AI capability with systems thinking and organisational judgement. Can build, redesign, prioritise, influence and turn AI possibilities into credible action.

What an AI Chief of Staff is

AI Chief of Staff is a Silicon Valley concept, like Mark Zuckerberg's Chief of Staff, a strategic partner who amplifies an executive's impact by combining judgement, coordination and execution.

An AI Chief of Staff is the professional who brings these capabilities together and applies them to real work, developing a rare combination of AI capability, systems thinking, domain expertise and organisational judgement that organisations increasingly need but rarely find in one person.

This programme is designed to help you build exactly that profile and operate at that level in the AI era.

01

Domain expertise

You understand the real problems, workflows, constraints, stakeholders and sources of value in your field.

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02

AI capability

You research, analyse, create, build and execute with AI at a materially higher professional standard.

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03

Systems thinking

You translate complex work into structured workflows and design reliable human-AI systems.

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04

Organisational judgement

You identify the right opportunities, work across stakeholders and support responsible implementation.

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The combination
AI Chief of Staff

A capability model, not a job title. It describes how you operate, not where you sit on an organisation chart.

Rare
AI skill is useful. AI skill combined with domain depth, systems thinking and judgement is much harder to find.
Amplified
AI expands what one capable professional can research, analyse, create, build and execute.
Organisationally useful
You connect new technical possibilities to real priorities, workflows, people and decisions.
An AI Chief of Staff may be
A high-potential professional being prepared for broader responsibility
A future leader who needs to understand how AI changes work and organisations
A domain expert who can identify where AI creates real value
An innovation or transformation professional connecting stakeholders and execution
A trusted operator working across functions on ambiguous or important problems
This is not what it requires
Holding, or moving into, a formal Chief of Staff role
Becoming the Chief AI Officer
Becoming the enterprise architect
Being the organisation's most technical specialist

What you develop

Six connected capabilities, from understanding the shift to turning capability into organisational impact.

Understand

The exponential shift

How AI is moving from prediction and creation towards cognitive autonomy and execution, and what that changes for professional value.

Use

Leading AI tools at a higher standard

Structured prompting, context design and disciplined workflows applied to research, analysis, communication, decision preparation and execution.

Redesign

Complex work as systems

Map real workflows, identify bottlenecks and failure points, and design human-AI systems that improve quality, consistency and scale.

Build

Practical AI-enabled solutions

AI-assisted development, no-code tools, automation and rapid prototyping to move from an idea to a working solution.

Orchestrate

Agents and autonomous systems

How agents plan, use tools and execute multi-step work, then how to design and test systems with appropriate controls.

Contribute

Organisational impact

Select meaningful opportunities, connect stakeholders, support leadership and translate practical evidence into a credible next step.

Before and after

The programme is designed to create a measurable shift in how you understand, use, build with and contribute through AI.

The programme develops the foundations, applied evidence and operating discipline for this shift. Depth continues to grow through practice after the four weekends.

Where most professionals are
Where the programme takes you
Scattered experimentation

Useful prompts and tools, but no coherent personal system.

A Personal AI Operating System

A disciplined way to choose, structure and reuse AI across high-value work.

Task-by-task productivity

AI improves isolated activities while the surrounding workflow stays the same.

AI-enabled workflow redesign

Complex work restructured around clear outcomes, decisions, controls and human-AI strengths.

Conceptual understanding

You can discuss AI, but turning an idea into something tangible is difficult.

Practical building capability

You can prototype a useful AI system and test it against a real problem.

Ideas without a route

Opportunities sit apart from priorities, stakeholders, governance and implementation.

Credible organisational contribution

You can assess an opportunity, build evidence and recommend a practical path forward.

What you leave with

Each weekend ends with one practical output. Together they are evidence of capability, not a record of attendance.

01

Personal AI Operating System

A structured set of AI tools, prompts, instructions, knowledge assets and working practices for high-value professional work.

Evidence that you use AI systematically, not prompt by prompt.
02

High-Performance AI Workflow

A clean, tested and documented workflow that improves an important professional activity through systems thinking and AI.

Evidence that you can redesign real work around human and machine strengths.
03

AI System Prototype

A functioning agentic workflow or AI-enabled application performing meaningful multi-step work with appropriate reliability controls.

Evidence that you can build a practical AI system, not only use one.
04

AI Chief of Staff Impact Blueprint

A credible path for translating one AI opportunity into organisational progress, covering implementation, governance and an executive recommendation.

Evidence that you can connect AI capability to a real organisational priority.
CFTE Certificate of Completion and digital badge
Applied AI Capability, Systems Thinking and Organisational Execution

Recognition of applied completion, not attendance. Issued after the programme and all four practical outputs are complete. It does not represent professional accreditation for a formal Chief of Staff role.

Who should attend

For professionals with the potential to play a meaningful role in their organisation's AI future.

Designed for high-potential professionals, future leaders and experienced domain specialists who already bring strong professional value and want to combine it with emerging AI capability.

High-potential professionals

You learn quickly, take ownership and are expected to contribute beyond your current role.

Future leaders

You are being prepared for broader responsibility and need to understand how AI changes work, teams and performance.

Domain experts

You understand an industry, function or workflow deeply and want to combine that with emerging AI capability.

Innovation and transformation professionals

You are expected to explore opportunities, connect stakeholders and move ideas into practice.

Trusted operators

You work across functions on ambiguous problems and influence without formal authority.

The strongest participants tend to
Be highly curious and motivated to learn quickly
Communicate effectively with practitioners and leaders
Understand how their organisation works
Work across teams and professional disciplines
Be willing to experiment, practise and build
Apply the learning immediately to real work

This is not an introductory AI literacy programme and not a technical engineering bootcamp. Neither a formal Chief of Staff role nor a technical background is required. Domain knowledge, curiosity and judgement matter more than technical credentials.

The four weekends

Each weekend builds on the last. Between weekends you apply the work in your own environment and return with evidence, questions and refinements.

5-6 September
Weekend 1
The Exponential AI Era and Personal Tool Mastery

Build your personal AI capability

Understand the current shift, rethink professional value and rapidly develop stronger proficiency with leading AI tools.

Practical output
Personal AI Operating System
12-13 September
Weekend 2
High-Performance Work, Systems Thinking and AI-Assisted Building

Redesign how work gets done

Move from proficient tool use to structuring complex work, building repeatable workflows and creating AI-enabled solutions.

Practical output
High-Performance AI Workflow
19-20 September
Weekend 3
Agentic AI and Autonomous Execution

Build with agents and autonomous systems

Design a system that can plan, use tools, access information and carry out meaningful multi-step work with appropriate controls.

Practical output
AI System Prototype
26-27 September
Weekend 4
The AI Chief of Staff in Action

Turn capability into organisational impact

Select the right opportunity, support leadership, influence without authority and build a practical path from prototype to implementation.

Practical output
AI Chief of Staff Impact Blueprint

Scheduled across four weekends to limit disruption to working commitments. Expect eight full days of intensive participation and applied work between weekends. The full day-by-day curriculum is set out in the brochure. Download the brochure

The learning experience

The value comes from the combination of personal leadership, a small cohort, intensive application and continued implementation support.

Become one of the people your organisation turns to on AI, because you understand what is changing, use the tools well, build practical evidence and bring structured judgement to decisions.

Personally led throughout

Huy Nguyen Trieu teaches and leads all eight days, providing continuity across mindset, tools, systems, building and organisational application.

A carefully selected cohort

A small group designed for direct interaction, strong peer learning and feedback on real workflows and organisational challenges.

Build, test and apply

Live demonstrations, tool laboratories, systems workshops, AI-assisted building, agent prototyping and applied work between weekends.

Direct challenge and feedback

Feedback on your thinking, workflow, prototype and implementation blueprint from Huy, your peers and selected practitioners.

Frontier capability

Tools, examples and practitioner contributions are updated immediately before delivery to reflect how quickly AI is moving.

A cohort that continues

Join the Founding Cohort Network and reconvene for a 90-day implementation clinic to review progress and next steps.

For your organisation

The programme is built around one meaningful professional or organisational challenge from your own work, carried through all four weekends.

Before
You identify one meaningful professional or organisational challenge, ideally in discussion with your manager.
During
That challenge is progressively analysed, redesigned, prototyped and considered through an implementation lens.
After
You present the recommendation and 90-day plan to your manager or leadership team, then use the implementation clinic to review progress.
What your organisation receives
A tested AI-enabled workflow
Linked to a real professional activity and documented for reuse by others.
A functioning prototype
Practical evidence of what is technically and operationally possible.
An assessed opportunity
Grounded in relevance, risk, value, stakeholders and organisational readiness.
A 90-day implementation path
Covering ownership, governance, sequencing and an executive recommendation.

Programme Director

Huy Nguyen Trieu, Co-Founder of CFTE and Programme Director of the AI Chief of Staff Programme

Huy Nguyen Trieu

Co-Founder of CFTE, Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship

Huy Nguyen Trieu focuses on how AI is reshaping talent, organisations and institutions, and how leaders can build capability systems to operate in an AI-driven world. His work sits at the intersection of AI, the future of work, and large scale institutional transformation.

Huy Nguyen Trieu is Co-Founder of CFTE, a global capability platform focused on AI and workforce transformation, with over 200,000 participants across 130 countries. He advises governments, central banks and financial institutions on building AI capability at scale.

He is the author of The AI-fication of Jobs, one of the earliest structured analyses of the relationship between artificial intelligence and employment. His published work includes the AI-fication of Talents whitepaper, the originating research behind frameworks now used at institutional scale, including the Performance Hexagon, the CDE Innovation Prism, the AI Capability Engine and SHIME.

Earlier in his career, Huy was a Managing Director at Citi and is an Associate Fellow at Oxford Saïd Business School. He is a graduate of MIT and École Polytechnique.

Background
Author, The AI-fication of Jobs
Former Managing Director, Citi
Founding Partner, Supercharger, Asia's largest fintech accelerator
First Fintech Resident Expert, Oxford Saïd Business School
Industry Fellow, Imperial College Business School
Graduate of MIT and École Polytechnique
200,000+
Professionals reached
130+
Countries represented
1,500+
Experts in the CFTE network
20
Founding cohort places
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Selection and application

The process confirms fit, clarifies what you want to achieve and builds a strong environment for serious exchange.

01
Short application questionnaire
Your background, current role, motivation and one meaningful professional or organisational challenge.
02
Individual discussion with Huy
A short conversation to talk through your application and what you want to get out of the programme. It is also where you can ask anything about the format, the commitment between weekends and what is expected of participants.
03
Cohort confirmation and preparation
Accepted participants receive preparation guidance, tool requirements and pre-work.

Applications close 03 September 2026 and are reviewed on a rolling basis.

Frequently asked questions

What does the programme cost?

The fee is provided on request. Email sg@cfte.education, or ask during the application discussion.

Do I need to be a formal Chief of Staff?

No. AI Chief of Staff describes a capability model and a way of operating. The programme is relevant to strategy and transformation professionals, high-potential leaders, domain experts and trusted cross-functional operators.

Do I need a technical or coding background?

No. You will work with AI-assisted development, no-code tools, automation and agent builders, but the emphasis is on using these to solve real professional and organisational problems.

Is this suitable for someone new to AI?

The programme does not require technical expertise, but it is not a basic AI literacy programme. It suits professionals who learn quickly, are comfortable experimenting and can bring a real workflow or organisational challenge with them.

How much time does it take outside the eight days?

Applied work continues between weekends. You test methods in your own work, collect evidence, refine your workflow and prototype, and prepare your organisational recommendation.

Can my employer sponsor me?

Yes. The programme creates a direct connection to your organisation through a real challenge, four practical outputs and a 90-day implementation path. Contact CFTE for employer information.

Why four weekends rather than a continuous block?

The cumulative structure lets you learn, apply the work in your own environment, return with evidence and questions, then build towards a complete organisational recommendation. It also limits disruption to working commitments.

Applications open for Singapore's first
AI Chief of Staff programme

This is the founding cohort, taught by CFTE's co-founder, Huy Nguyen Trieu. Applications close on 03 September, 2026 and are reviewed on an ongoing basis.

Or write to partners@cfte.education with your name, organisation and role.

Places are confirmed as applications are reviewed, so the cohort can fill before the deadline.

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