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Ask Maria Kelly

Practical strategy and AI for experienced professionals.

Hi, I'm Maria 👋 Irish-Swiss business strategist and AI integration specialist, based in Barcelona. I spent over twenty years at Sotheby's, leading global teams across New York, London, and Geneva. Now I share what I learned on strategy, AI, and how to make better decisions faster so you don't have to figure it all out alone. Twice a month, straight to your inbox. Written for people who have no time to waste.

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Maria a short, blonde-haired woman wearing a strawberry-coloured suit, standing and smiling, with the title "What AI would have fixed for me" in front of her
Featured Post

How AI Can Fix Leadership Isolation

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, I've been prepping for a webinar I'm giving next week, and it's stirred up something I discovered early on in my career: How lonely leadership can be. I had a few brilliant bosses along the way, people who backed me and taught me things I still use today. But in between them, there were long stretches with no one to test a decision on before I made it or to tell me when I was about to get something wrong. I was managing people with zero formal training,...

3 days ago • 6 min read
A blond woman in a red blazer holding a basket full of eggs

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, Am I being paranoid? I've been using AI tools for close to four years now. ChatGPT was my first love, then I discovered Claude and, in a beat, I switched over. Yes, I know, not very loyal of me.... But these models are always improving, and I quickly realised that constantly challenging them is the way to get the best results. These last few months, though, I've found that Claude's quality has dropped, while ChatGPT has gotten a lot better. Which is weird, as...

17 days ago • 5 min read
Maria holding a tower stack of plates looking worried that the top one might slip off

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, I want to tell you about my first big leadership role. I'd just stepped into it: a new team, loads of responsibility, the kind of job I'd worked hard for and wanted to prove I could do well. My manager was based in another country, and support was thin on the ground. And for twelve months, I walked around feeling like I was carrying a balancing stack of plates, terrified one would slip, and the whole lot would come crashing down around me. I doubted every...

about 1 month ago • 4 min read

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, Long time no see.... I've just returned from two weeks holidays in the South of France, where I totally disconnected from all things digital. So much so that I totally forgot to post my newsletter last week. OOPS!! 🙈 I'm back on track now, and this week we're talking about the AI failures, the "work slop" nobody wants to admit to, and how AI can cost businesses way more than it's saving them. If podcasts are more your speed, I've got you covered; there's a...

about 1 month ago • 5 min read
A young woman holding in one hand an iPhone and in the other an old telephone with the words "We are failing them." She is wearing a blazer and sunglasses on her head.

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, She held my hand for 30 minutes and never once looked me in the eyes. Not when she sat down. Not while she worked. Not until I said thank you at the end, and even then it was a half-second glance before she got up and walked away. This experience with that young woman at my nail salon has been bugging me ever since. I don't believe that she was being rude. I first thought she was shy, but I think it was something else…it felt like she just didn't know how to...

2 months ago • 5 min read

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, By now, I have had enough conversations about AI transformation to spot the pattern. Some companies keep getting stuck at the same bump in the road, and nine times out of ten, it comes down to the same issue: nobody actually owns the AI rollout. When most businesses decide to get serious about AI, their first instinct is to do the obvious thing and hand it to IT. It makes sense on paper. AI is a technology, so give it to the tech people and let them figure it...

3 months ago • 5 min read
A car seat buckle with the words "buckle up AI" written across it

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, I came across a post this week that stopped me mid-scroll. Sol Rashidi, the world's first Chief AI Officer back in 2016 (and a woman), was speaking at the AI Congress about something that should concern all: We are deploying one of the most powerful technologies in human history, without any security around it, not even the equivalent of seatbelts. I think about this a lot. I am genuinely for AI. I have built my work around it, and I do believe it is going to...

3 months ago • 4 min read
A long corporate boardroom table, empty chairs, a presentation screen at the far end showing a graph going up. On the table, a single cardboard box with a few personal belongings in it. No people.

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, I've been watching this play out for years: A company hits a rough patch, or just wants to look lean for the shareholders. They announce a sweeping new strategy, headlines follow, share prices go up, and then, people start losing their jobs. The official reason changes depending on the decade: market conditions, offshoring, automation...today, the reason is AI. But here's what the data is finally telling us: it isn't working. If podcasts are more your speed,...

4 months ago • 6 min read
Newsletter thumbnail for Ask Maria Kelly showing scales of justice, an AI brain, and EU stars with the text "Is Your Business AI Compliant?"

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, Most people I speak to have never heard of the EU AI Act. And the ones who have, they've mostly hidden it under the "something to deal with later" pile. I get it! I did too. To be honest, before I started researching it for this newsletter, I didn't fully understand the implications and urgency around it. It sounds like boring bureaucracy, something for big companies with legal teams that doesn't apply to you yet. But it does, and August 2026, which is when it...

4 months ago • 6 min read
Employees leaving a building with boxes with their personal belongings in them, as they've just been fired

Good Morning Reader it's Maria, Something happened at the end of last month that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. On the 31st of March (just before Easter), thousands of Oracle employees woke up to an email. It arrived at 6 am and was signed "Oracle Leadership." No manager, no phone call... just a message telling them their access had been revoked and today was their last working day. Some of those people had been there for decades, and one woman was 30 weeks pregnant. That email...

5 months ago • 3 min read