12. Shifting the Mindset of an Enterprise Workforce with Geoff Gilmore

Imagine going from saying, “AI has no place in steel manufacturing”… to declaring, “It is my expectation that you use AI” across 6,000 employees — all in under six months.

That’s exactly what happened when one leader flipped the switch. At first skeptical, he was convinced AI couldn’t touch a 65-year-old steel company. But a persistent senior leader put the right books in his hands — Co-Intelligence and The AI-Driven Leader — and suddenly, curiosity turned into conviction.

Within months, he vulnerably admitted, “I wasn’t an expert, but I led anyway.” That courage gave his people permission to act. Pilots surged: predictive inventory, machine reliability, contract analyzers, and more — initiatives powerful enough to potentially move stock price. And through it all, he kept a people-first philosophy: “Work-life balance matters as much as stock price.”

Today’s AI-Driven Leader is Geoff Gilmore, President, CEO, and Director of Worthington Steel.