The Good: Rarely will you see any people news on the site, social media, or the Fifth Wave Monthly newsletter. We love people; new positions are covered amply in other places. Today we have one of those rare exceptional cases because it may be an early indicator of a new trend.
On February 16, Bystronic announced the appointment of Kevin McAllister as President, Region Americas. He will report to Bystronic CEO Domenico Iacovelli and will serve as a member of the company’s Top Management Circle. He joins the company after seven years as President of ANDRITZ Schuler North America.
Emphasis is mine here: Prior to ANDRITZ Schuler, McAllister spent more than two decades at ABB, holding senior leadership positions across global and regional operations. Domenico Iacovelli said: “Kevin’s proven leadership, customer-centric approach, and deep industrial expertise make him an outstanding addition to Bystronic…He will play a key role in the integration of our recently acquired Bystronic-Rofin business, which adds new laser technologies to our portfolio and expands our market base to exciting growth industries like medical technology and semiconductors.”
Again, my emphasis: McAllister holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, and an Executive Leadership degree from IMD in Switzerland.
To me, this is a future archetype. Why? When you boil it all down, a president’s job is to move a company from Point A to Point B. In the good old days, that job was all about making the right widgets, trying to gain market share, then trying to increase profits with pricing and cost reduction.
Today’s presidents live in a different world, although they still must do everything in the previous sentence. And more. Maybe Point A is simply current status, and Point B is to move the company to a tech-platform basis (this seems plausible). How does the company get there? It will take very different experience, although the leadership skills will still need to be there. McAllister seems to have both leadership experience and technical chops. I wish him well and I’m excited to see what he and Bystronic will do.
The Bad: As reported in the Times of India, Feb. 21, 2026:
“Accenture has started tying promotion eligibility to AI tool usage, telling senior managers and associate directors that advancing to leadership roles will require demonstrating ‘regular adoption’ of its artificial intelligence platforms. The move follows CEO Julie Sweet’s earlier warning that employees unable to adapt to AI would be ‘exited’ from the company—and it appears HR is now putting that stance into formal practice. The consulting giant has also begun tracking individual weekly logins to its AI tools for some senior staff, making it one of the more aggressive internal AI mandates seen at a major professional services firm.
“The reaction internally has been less than enthusiastic…Sweet has made the company’s position clear. She previously told investors that Accenture would ‘exit’ employees for whom reskilling on AI wasn’t a viable path—and the latest promotion criteria appear to be the formal follow-through on that stance.
“Accenture’s share price has dropped roughly 42% over the past year, and the company is betting heavily that its AI-first repositioning—including rebranding its workforce as ‘reinventors’—will reverse that slide.
Just as I am proud to see someone with newly necessary experience and skills get ahead like Mr. McAllister, I am put off when an executive makes what amounts to a quota requirement like Ms. Sweet. It is the equivalent of a C-suite number cruncher setting a phone call quota for sales. At the end of the month, they can check the “number of phone calls” box, but not enough new sales to peg the needle. They got the quota/behavior that they thought they wanted, and no real or artificial intelligence would recommend that.