An AI-focused project management consultant has been awarded a ‘Brand of the Future’ title for her work helping professionals integrate artificial intelligence into their operations.
Lidia Plartus established The GPT Lab to combine more than 20 years of experience in project transformation and business analysis with AI-driven methods. Her approach aims to cut administrative effort by up to 40%, free more than 10 hours per week and increase delivery capacity by as much as 30% without extending working time or expanding teams.
The recognition from Big Business Events highlights her work supporting project leaders to adopt AI tools effectively, including the development of AI-based project personas that reduce manual tasks and enable greater focus on strategic priorities, alongside workflow optimisation.
Lidia specialises in aligning technical capability with organisational needs.
“My background is in projects and transformations but more specifically bridging the gap between business and technology,” she said.
“Too often, business talks business, IT talks IT, and neither of them talk each other’s language.”
After redundancy three years ago and significant personal upheaval, she redirected her career towards building her own consultancy based on her long-standing expertise.
“I was made redundant, in a volatile job market which provided its own opportunities. After a couple of short contracts in the construction industry, I sussed out within a year that the job market is not something I can rely on, so I decided I had to figure out what I am going to do as a business to sustain myself.”
“It turns out 50-year-olds like me, have been almost written off by employers so I decided to build my own AI agency.
“My family unit was disintegrating at the same time, my husband left to be with somebody else, and I did not have a stable income. I had to sell the house and decided to focus on building my AI business.”
She believes her technical and change management background provides a strong foundation for guiding organisations through AI adoption.
“It is a complete new chapter from all perspectives, but it is building on skills I already have – I understand technology, I understand software, I understand tooling, I understand change and transformation, the way people work, and how technology and people can achieve synergies.”
Lidia warns that many organisations are implementing automation without first addressing core processes.
“Everybody is running towards automations and agentic AI but they are not actually mastering the fundamentals,” she added.
“From experience with other projects and other transformations I have managed, if you do not cover the foundations, gaps will show later on in unpredictable ways, creating chaos rather than seamlessly achieving results.
“With AI, you either get too scared and get left behind or you run too fast and you run into problems. It is like riding a bicycle – at first you have your stabilisers and it is when you get the confidence that you are able to go fast.”
She also emphasises that technology cannot compensate for weak systems.
“I have been an analyst for 20 years and I see issues before they happen – the issue I see is that people are going for these fancy tools before they are ready and they are not going to work for them,” said Lidia.
“No complex technology will solve a broken system. You must fix those first. A simple tool that solves a problem is better than a complex tool that creates problems.”
For more information and to contact Lidia, visit her LinkedIn profile or email [email protected]
