AI adoption is accelerating faster than most organizations can manage. Leaders are under pressure to deploy—but without governance frameworks in place, they're exposing their organizations to regulatory risk, data loss, and algorithmic failures they won't see coming. This session cuts through the hype and delivers a practitioner's blueprint for building a security-conscious AI program from scratch. Drawing on hands-on experience standing up institutional AI initiatives and deep study of the EU AI Act and emerging U.S. frameworks, attendees will leave with a tiered governance model they can adapt—whether they're a 5-person startup or a 5,000-person enterprise. This isn't policy theory. It's how to actually do it.