The Named-Owner Protocol

A name, a scope, and the protections behind them

The Named-Owner Protocol is the framework that puts a single named executive against the outcome of every AI system that matters to the business — and settles, before the system goes live, what that person must secure so the accountability is real rather than nominal. It converts "who owns AI?" from a question that produces an org chart into one that produces a name, a scope, and a set of protections bought at the contract table.

Where a cause may never be found after an AI failure, accountability gets settled in advance or never at all. This protocol is how a board settles it in advance.

Use it by completing the pre-go-live checklist for each material system, recording the owner on the named-owner record, and adding the reserved-matters line to the board's schedule.

Everything the board needs to name an owner

• The pre-go-live checklist: the four protections a named owner must secure
• A board-approval template for which systems require an owner, and who they are
• A fillable named-owner record, one for each material system
• The reserved-matters line that places named owners in the board's own schedule
• Guidance on running the protocol as a standing discipline

At the contract stage, while the protections can still be won

Built for the boards that approve AI systems

Written for the Chair and board that approve AI deployments. It also serves general counsel and company secretaries working at the contract stage, where the protections are won or lost, and any director who has asked who owns this after a failure and heard a silence.

Accountability settled before go-live

Before a material AI system is approved, it has a named owner who has secured what the board needs: records that reconstruct what happened, the running version logged, the provider bound to preserve evidence and cooperate, and the authority to stop the system. The board approves the names before a failure, through its schedule of matters reserved.