If 2025 was the year of AI readiness, 2026 is the year of AI execution. However, the data suggests most companies aren’t as far along as the headlines imply. In this episode of Inside the AI Execution Gap, Michael Newcomer, Kyle Langworthy and Josh Narva sit down to unpack the findings of Riveira Partners’ 2026 Future of Technology Leadership Report.

Michael Newcomer is CEO of Riviera Partners. With a 15-year career at the intersection of talent, technology, data, and financial services, he brings deep expertise in executive search and strategic talent leadership.

Before joining Riviera, he spent five years at two of the world’s most prominent hedge funds, leading talent and strategy teams that supported innovation, new business development, and investment teams across multiple strategies. From 2010 to 2017, he worked in financial services and technology executive search.

An entrepreneur at heart, Michael has founded and successfully exited both an executive search firm and a tutoring company. 

Kyle Langworthy is a Partner and Co-lead of the AI, ML, and Data Practice at Riviera Partners, where he leads executive search engagements placing technical leaders at the forefront of AI transformation. Kyle partners with founders, CEOs, and boards across venture-backed startups and enterprise software companies to build the leadership teams driving their AI strategies. His work sits at the intersection of talent, technology, and organizational design, giving him a front-row view of how the most ambitious companies are staffing for the age of AI execution.

Josh Narva is the Head of Talent Advisory at Riviera Partners, where he helps CEOs and executive teams tackle the org design, accountability, and leadership questions that determine whether AI and technology strategies actually get executed. Josh advises public companies, growth-stage businesses, and private equity-backed portfolios on how to align org structure with strategy, define decision rights across complex leadership teams, and avoid the common traps that stall transformation efforts. Drawing on deep experience across HR, talent strategy, and executive assessment, Josh brings a pragmatic lens to the human side of technology leadership.

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