Leading Through Change: How Business Leaders Navigate AI, Growth and Uncertainty
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- Irvine-area business leaders say the challenge is not change itself but its accelerating pace, urging companies to solve concrete business problems rather than chase every new technology.
- Early warnings may come from shifting customer behavior and employee turnover—not financial reports—while growth can expose outdated decision-making structures and contracts.
- Panelists urge leaders to use AI to strengthen human talent, preserve core values and involve employees transparently as organizations adapt.
MODERATOR
David Coffaro
President & CEO
GREATER IRVINE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Dave Coffaro is a strategic advisor, keynote speaker and author who helps organizations navigate change. He leads the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as president & CEO. He is also principal of Strategic Advisory Consulting Group and co-founder of Atticus, a fintech firm. Before that, he held senior leadership roles at Wells Fargo and Bank of America and served as interim CEO of Members Trust Company and Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. He writes and speaks on strategic leadership and change, and holds an MBA from Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker School of Management.
SPEAKERS
Colin Fraser
Shareholder
GREENBERG TRAURIG
Colin W. Fraser is an experienced litigator at Greenberg Traurig with a concentration in real estate, intellectual property and appellate law. He represents clients in complex business disputes in federal and state courts, as well as in arbitration and mediation. Colin’s practice includes high-stakes matters involving real estate litigation, state and local taxation, intellectual property and commercial litigation. He has served as lead counsel in over a dozen cases resulting in published opinions by the California Supreme Court, California Court of Appeal and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal.
Eric Gallagher
Partner
WITHUM
Eric Gallagher is an audit partner at Withum with over 25 years of experience in providing accounting, external auditing and business advisory services to companies located throughout the United States. His areas of expertise include real estate development, hospitality, mortgage banking, construction, architectural engineering, title and escrow, employee benefit plans and ESOPs. Eric is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in the states of California and New Jersey.
INSIGHTS FROM THE PANEL
In an era characterized by rapid technological advancement, economic shifts and shifting labor market expectations, business leaders face an evolving set of choices. During a panel moderated by David Coffaro, CEO and president of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, two local business experts – Eric Gallagher, partner and CPA at Withum, and Colin Fraser, shareholder at Greenberg Traurig LLP – offered practical insights on how leaders can navigate change, rethink organizational structures and adopt new technologies like artificial intelligence without losing sight of core values.
Navigating the Pace of Change and Avoiding Strategic Missteps
Opening the discussion, David Coffaro noted that leaders are operating in an environment of extraordinary volatility, pointing to the divide between strong Wall Street economic indicators and the uncertainty felt on Main Street.
Addressing how organizations are coping, Eric Gallagher clarified that the primary challenge is not change itself, but rather its speed:
“I don’t see that people are struggling with change itself. Change has always existed, but I think what’s different now is the pace of change and leaders and decision-makers are trying to navigate that as they try to make decisions on where to place their bets.”
Gallagher warned against reacting impulsively to every new technological development, cautioning that fear of missing out can lead organizations to make tech-driven moves without a grounding strategy:
“Instead of asking yourself which AI tool should we be investing in, perhaps the better question to ask is: ‘What business problems are we trying to solve here?’ And what is the best solution or what are the solutions that are out there that could include AI and could help us achieve those business objectives.”
Recognizing Early Signals Before They Hit the Bottom Line
Financial metrics often act as lagging indicators. Colin Fraser explained that when looking for early warning signs of market or operational shifts, leaders should look at marginal customer behaviors and employee turnover rather than rely solely on past financial performance:
“Financial results are necessarily a lagging indicator. The way that I see CEO clients anticipating the future is they’re looking at customer behavior on the margins. It’s not their core customers who are loyal no matter what. They’re asking about the newer customers ... or they’re asking about where the best people in their organization might be looking.”
Infrastructure and Outdated Contracts
As companies grow, foundational practices that once worked can quickly become operational bottlenecks. Gallagher pointed out that centralized decision-making is a prime indicator that a business has outgrown its structure:
“One of the surefire signs of this is when you have decision-making that’s still concentrated in one individual. Along with growth comes complexity, and at some moment the organization is going to start to scale, and that scalability will not really match the decision-making power of a single individual.”
From a legal standpoint, Fraser noted that using outdated contracts can expose growing companies to severe risk, particularly regarding IP protection, liability and data security:
“If you’re still using contracts that were designed when you were a small company and now you’ve scaled ... you’re going to be encountering problems and that’s where we see lawsuits arise ... the better process is to evaluate that on a periodic basis, not just leave it to the last minute and continually update and refine those contracts so that they are meeting the moment that you’re facing.”
Balancing Core Values with Needed Innovation
When deciding what to keep and what to transform, Fraser stressed that core values must remain steady even as operational methods evolve:
“Core principles and core values persist even as the market changes. Integrity at a law firm, judgment at a law firm – those are things that we prize. It doesn’t matter that it’s an AI world now ... [but] things that need rethinking are the hierarchical structure of your organization.”
Decision-Making Under Uncertainty
In fast-moving markets, leaders rarely have access to complete information before making critical choices. Gallagher noted that waiting for total certainty often leads to missed opportunities:
“If you’re waiting for complete information, then you’re probably going to be too late in your decision-making. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty. What you really need to do is take the best available information that you have and make a decision with it and then evaluate the result afterwards.”
Fraser categorized decisions into two distinct buckets to determine how quickly a leader should act:
- Fixable, Low-Cost Decisions: Prioritize speed and adapt as you execute.
- Irreversible, High-Cost Decisions: Prioritize disciplined judgment, thorough input and expert consultation to manage major legal or organizational risk.
AI Integration and Leading Teams Through Transition
Addressing how AI should be positioned within a company’s broader strategy, Fraser warned against viewing technology as a replacement for human thought:
“There’s using it to amplify the talent you have, and then you can use it as sort of a substitute for thinking. It’s not their ideas that are being presented, it is the AI’s ideas and they’re not that interesting – everyone else already has them because they’re all using the same AI tools.”
He emphasized that AI is no longer just an IT concern, but a central strategic priority that requires ongoing, firm-wide education and executive direction.
To successfully guide teams through major structural changes without causing fatigue or disengagement, Fraser advocated for broad involvement and complete transparency:
“Keeping everyone involved in the decision-making process about how it works is probably the most important way ... [and] don’t fake it till you make it. Be transparent about what you don’t know and what you do know.”
Conclusion & Key Takeaways
To close the discussion, Coffaro asked each panelist for a final action point for leaders navigating ongoing change:
Gallagher: “Start using AI this week if you haven’t done it already. Pick something that takes a lot of your time and look for a way that you can automate it to make it either be faster or better ... to free up some of the mundane things.”
Fraser: “Think about one assumption – and hopefully it’s a structural one – that you should start rethinking and no longer just believing in blindly ... try to pick one and think about how you’d reimagine it.”
In his closing remark, Coffaro reminded the audience that adaptation is constant: “Change is not an event. It’s an ongoing process. Planet Earth is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour – we’re in constant change. Why would business be any different?”
