Overview

Mark Van Sumeren's A Return to Strategic Leadership: Judgment in the Age of AI continues the journey begun in A Trip to Strategic Leadership, following retired executive Bill Ellis as he is called back into action to rescue his former consulting firm, Barney-Hamilton, from decline. The story opens with Ellis living a peaceful retirement in Ann Arbor until his old colleague pleads for help-the firm is collapsing under market pressures and the rise of an AI rival named Erebus. What begins as a reluctant return soon becomes a meditation on leadership in an era when machines can outthink but not out-judge. Van Sumeren uses Ellis's comeback to explore how technology is reshaping strategy, arguing that human insight, courage, and ethical clarity remain indispensable even in a data-driven world. At the heart of the novel lies the creation of VERITY, a digital mirror of Barney-Hamilton's collective intelligence-its institutional memory, moral compass, and professional judgment. Through this initiative, Ellis reframes leadership not as control but as context: the ability to interpret and apply knowledge wisely. VERITY becomes a metaphor for purposeful integration of human judgment and artificial intelligence, emphasizing that speed and computation mean little without conscience. The narrative contrasts Ellis's vision of transparent, values-based leadership with the cynical pragmatism of his rival, Edward Lang, whose pursuit of profit and private-equity backing threatens to hollow out the firm's soul. Their conflict-between conscience and convenience-anchors the book's tension and dramatizes a broader question facing modern organizations: can ethics and profitability coexist in the age of algorithms. Across its chapters, the novel combines boardroom drama, philosophical reflection, and organizational reinvention. Van Sumeren structures the book around Ellis's ""Four Factors of Judgment""-the quality of curated data, the precision of questions posed, the human values guiding their use, and the expertise interpreting their meaning. Each episode-his listening tours, ethical confrontations, and creation of the Council on Judgment and Integrity-illustrates one of these principles in practice. By the conclusion, Barney-Hamilton has evolved from a complacent consultancy into a living network of belief, transparency, and renewal. Ultimately, A Return to Strategic Leadership is both business parable and moral fable. It argues that in an age where intelligence is abundant, judgment must become exceptional. Van Sumeren's sequel fuses realism about AI's disruptive potential with optimism about humanity's enduring role as interpreter and steward of meaning. It's a compelling reflection on how leadership must evolve-not by rejecting technology, but by reclaiming the distinctly human wisdom that gives it purpose.

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