By Tim Walsh, Co-Founder and CEO, ThinkGov
The stack of unread leadership books on your nightstand probably grew taller this spring. Before you head out for a well-earned break, move one title to the top: Geoff Woods’ “The AI-Driven Leader.” It is the most relevant book an airport director can read right now, and not for the reasons you might expect.
Woods makes a deceptively simple argument. Most leaders who have started using AI are applying it to the wrong work. They draft emails faster, clean up spreadsheets, and summarize reports. Those are fine productivity gains, but they leave the real value on the table. The transformative shift happens when a leader treats AI not as a task automator but as a strategic thought partner, one that challenges assumptions, stress-tests decisions, and surfaces blind spots before they become costly mistakes.
For airport leaders, that distinction matters enormously. Our operating environment is unlike any other corner of the public sector. We manage FAA certification, TSA security coordination, airline negotiations, capital programs funded through AIP and PFC, noise-sensitive communities, and concession portfolios, often simultaneously. The decisions that shape an airport’s trajectory over the next decade are not the ones that can be reduced to a template. They require judgment, context, and the kind of rigorous thinking that benefits from a capable sparring partner.
Woods offers a practical framework for getting there. Assign AI a role, a board member who asks the uncomfortable question, a finance director who pressure-tests your rate methodology, a community advocate who surfaces concerns you haven’t anticipated. Engage it iteratively, one question at a time, asking it to explain its reasoning so you sharpen your own. Focus it on the twenty percent of your work that drives eighty percent of your results: strategic planning, air service development strategy, capital prioritization, workforce investment. The rest can follow.
The book’s core message resonates with leaders already moving in this direction. Dr. Perry J. Miller, President and CEO of the Richmond International Airport, put it this way: “Leveraging AI is no longer optional — it is essential to shaping and executing a forward-looking strategy.” Dr. Miller has backed that conviction with action, ensuring every employee at Richmond International Airport has access to an AI thought partner, not as a pilot program, but as an organizational commitment tied directly to the airport’s five-year strategic plan. That is the kind of leadership Woods describes: intentional, inclusive, and anchored to mission.
The practical question, of course, is where to start. Reading the book gives you the leadership mindset. Translating that mindset into an actionable governance framework for your airport is the next step. ThinkGov recently published a free AI Governance Starter Kit built specifically for airport CIOs and leadership teams. It walks through establishing an AI governance charter, inventorying the AI tools already embedded in your vendor systems, classifying use cases by risk tier, and building the policies your organization needs before scaling adoption. You can download it at https://thinkgov.ai/resources
The combination is powerful. Woods gives you the strategic lens to understand why AI matters for your leadership, not just your operations. The Starter Kit gives you the practical roadmap to bring your organization along responsibly.
Airport directors have never lacked for complexity. What has been missing is a tool that matches the pace and breadth of the decisions we face every day. AI is that tool, but only if we use it the way Woods describes: as a thought partner that makes our thinking sharper, our strategies more resilient, and our teams more capable.
Pack the book. Download the Starter Kit. And when you come back from the beach, you will be ready to lead differently.
Tim Walsh is the Co-Founder and CEO of ThinkGov, an AI-native technology company purpose-built for airports and the public sector. A former airport director, Walsh, brings firsthand operational experience to the challenge of responsible AI adoption. In 2025, ThinkGov was recognized with an ACI World Airports Innovate Award in South Korea for its work advancing AI governance and workforce empowerment across the airport industry.
DISCLAIMER
This article was provided by a third party and, as such, the views expressed therein and/or presented are their own and may not represent or reflect the views of Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA), its management, Board, or members. Readers should not act on the basis of any information contained in the blog without referring to applicable laws and regulations and/or without appropriate professional advice.