Secure executive sponsorship and appoint a CoE Lead with block authority

Owner: Executive sponsor (CEO / COO / CTO / CIO). Input: Readiness gates passed. Sub-steps:

1. Executive sponsor formally commits budget for: a CoE Lead (FTE or strong PT allocation), a registry tool, an observability tool, an AI gateway (or equivalent), and pilot LLM credits.
2. Appoint the CoE Lead (sometimes titled Head of AI / CAIO).
3. Document this in writing — internal memo, all-hands, in the company's wiki — that this person has authority to block any AI deployment in the company.
4. Define their performance goals (framework.md §8): tied to outcomes (ROI realized, incidents avoided, agents at target risk levels), not vanity metrics.
5. Set up a recurring monthly review between the CoE Lead and the executive sponsor. Output / gate criteria: A named person with written block authority, budget, and exec backing. Decision branches:

• No one will accept block authority → the role is not real. Renegotiate with the sponsor; don't start the program without it. Skip-this-step risk: Governance-by-committee theatre. No one can stop a bad deployment.