Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) · CTO

I read the market, architect the product, and ship the code.

Chief Architect at READI, where I architected READI Smart Connector, a multi-model agentic AI product in a new category that brings applications without APIs under identity governance, and wrote a majority of its code through AI-driven development.

26 years in B2B SaaS and enterprise software · Engineering leadership at five companies · 8X to 15X growth, three companies in a row, three different markets

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What I Do

A technology executive who owns product and engineering together, and who still builds.

I quantify what customers are trying to accomplish and which outcomes matter most yet go unmet, segment the market around those gaps, choose the strategy the data supports, then architect and ship it.

At READI that meant designing Smart Connector end to end and writing most of its code. At Thalamus it meant a market strategy that made a small company the most visible competitive threat to the incumbent, then a strategic sponsorship agreement with that incumbent. At Nuvolo it meant founding the product practice and growing the portfolio from 2 products to 12 as ARR grew 15X, with engineering running on an operating model I own.

I have led engineering at five companies: an organization I built from scratch to 62 people, about 150 at peak, at FICO; a 44-person global sales engineering function and then new-product R&D drawing on 90 engineers at BlueCat; 100+ engineers through a dotted-line model at Nuvolo; 22 engineers at Thalamus; and the 21-person engineering group whose technical design and engineering work I direct at READI.

How I Work

Read the market. Architect the product. Ship it. Grow the people who keep shipping it.

Market

Read the market first.

I read where a market is moving and decide what to build from evidence, not opinion, mine included.

At Thalamus the read came from my first analysis: the strategy it set took market share from 17% to 65% against the incumbent's free products. The incumbent then retired those products and sponsored ours, share reached 94%, and the incumbent later led the company's Series B.

At Nuvolo, quantitative Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) research set the direction of the core asset management products and produced two new ones, as the portfolio grew from 2 products to 12.

17% → 94% share
ARR 8X in 18 months
2 → 12 products

ii.

Architecture

Architect for the outcome.

READI Smart Connector learns an application once, then runs in production as governed, validated, and attested actions to ensure a deterministic outcome: code controls the workflow while models perceive the screen, operate the interface, and verify each result.

READI's next-generation platform, which I architected, is designed to cut hosting cost per tenant by about 83%.

New product category
Company revenue up 20% within 10 months of launch
About 83% lower hosting cost per tenant, by design

iii.

Operating Model

Ship, and keep shipping.

I run engineering on Lean Software Development and Kaizen, a model I learned on Boeing's shop floor. At Nuvolo it delivered 80% fewer defects, 400% higher engineering velocity, and every release on time at full planned scope, while the portfolio grew from 2 products to 12.

At Thalamus the same model kept every release on time at full planned scope in my first year, while I led its 22 engineers.

−80% defects
+400% engineering velocity
2 → 12 products

iv.

Coaching

Grow leaders, not just teams.

I lead as a coach: extreme candor and high engagement. Teams I led at FICO and Nuvolo measured engagement above 90% on formal company surveys, and annual attrition across the organizations I built and led has stayed under 1% across more than 500 hires, contractors excluded.

Every role I have taken since 2010 came through people who had worked with me before.

90%+ engagement
500+ hires · under 1% annual attrition
Key leaders followed me across companies

The Evidence

The pattern, in numbers.

8X·15X·15X

// Three companies in a row, three different markets: Thalamus ARR 8X in 18 months, Nuvolo ARR 15X over five years, BlueCat revenue 15X over six years.

17% → 94%

Share of graduate medical education programs at Thalamus: 17% to 65% organically, then 94% after a strategic sponsorship agreement I initiated with the incumbent.

50%

Lower identity-management operating cost, measured by READI across its customers on the platform where I own architecture and technical strategy.

Smart Connector, the agentic AI product I architected, lifted company revenue 20% within 10 months of launch.

−80% / +400%

Defects down, engineering velocity up, every release on time at full planned scope, while Nuvolo's portfolio grew from 2 products to 12 and ARR grew 15X.

25,000+ TPS
99.999% availability

The My Coke Rewards engine behind every Coca-Cola brand website: 100M+ user sessions a day from about 20 million unique users, five-nines availability measured per year on every transaction, from an active-active-active design across three data centers.

Two acquisitions

Two companies I helped scale were later acquired, by Madison Dearborn Partners and Trane Technologies.

Trusted to Build For

Products I architected, built, or led to market have served:

Coca-Cola · Walmart · JPMorgan Chase · Bank of America · Kaiser Permanente · GE Healthcare · HCA Healthcare · Siemens Healthineers · Department of Veterans Affairs · U.S. Army · NASA · Boeing · SAP · Apple

Career

Chief Architect · READI

Identity governance and automation · First architect hired

Architected READI Smart Connector, an agentic AI product in a new category that brings mainframe, desktop, and web applications without APIs under identity governance, and wrote a majority of its code through AI-driven development.

Own platform architecture and technical strategy across the portfolio; direct the technical design and engineering work of a 21-person engineering group in a flat organization; lead and mentor two AI architects.

Architected READI's next-generation platform, designed to cut hosting cost per tenant by about 83%.

Wrote about 320,000 lines of production code in six months through multi-model AI-driven development.

Head of Product & Market Strategy · Thalamus

Post-Series A SaaS · 19 months · Reported to the CEO

From my first market analysis, set the strategy that made Thalamus the most visible competitive threat to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in graduate medical education recruiting, against the AAMC's free products.

ARR grew 8X in 18 months: tripled organically as market share rose from 17% to 65%, then 94% after a strategic sponsorship agreement I initiated and whose framework I led, under which the AAMC retired its competing products and sponsored ours.

Led 22 engineers for the first 12 months, with every release on time at full planned scope, plus a full platform re-architecture and the launch of two machine learning products.

Vice President of Product Management · Nuvolo (acquired by Trane Technologies)

Enterprise SaaS built on ServiceNow · 5½ years · Recruited by the founding CEO · Promoted from Director, Solution Consulting

Founded the product management practice as its first product manager and led product as the portfolio grew from 2 products to 12 and ARR grew 15X.

Set direction for 100+ engineers through a dotted-line model and, as Kaizen process owner, ran the Lean Software Development operating model behind the defect, velocity, and on-time results above.

Launched OT (operational technology) Cyber Security, a new product category with an exclusive Mayo Clinic co-brand. From Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) research, built Property Management and GxP Lab Management for Life Sciences and refocused the Clinical and Facilities Asset Management products.

Made the products deployable in federal, military, and intelligence agencies.

Director of Sales Engineering, then Director of Systems Engineering (R&D) · BlueCat (acquired by Madison Dearborn Partners)

Enterprise DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI) appliances · 6½ years

Founded and built a 44-person global sales engineering function that won every enterprise deal through proof of value and full solution design before close, as revenue grew 15X in six years.

Then led new product R&D drawing on 90 engineers through project-based dotted-line assignments: designed BlueCat Private Cloud and BlueCat Virtual Lab, a fully hyper-converged software-defined data center for production-fidelity DDI testing at Global 2000 scale.

Principal Architect and Innovation Leader · FICO

Fair Isaac Networks, FICO's innovation incubator · Employee #2

Built the incubator from scratch to 62 people, about 150 at peak after acquisitions.

When I joined, FICO had two web services in early adoption; my organization built 98% of the SaaS products that followed, across marketing, banking, and healthcare analytics.

Architected the My Coke Rewards engine behind every Coca-Cola brand website: 25,000+ transactions per second at 99.999% availability, measured per year on every transaction, across three active-active-active FICO data centers, six months from sale to launch.

Before technology products: the shop floor

Boeing · Signs West · TeamVision

My path into technology started on Boeing's shop floor: an engine buildup mechanic in the 1,200-person Propulsion Systems Division and my area's focal for its Lean, Six Sigma, and Total Quality Management transformation, the root of the operating model I run today.

Before that I grew a light-manufacturing company 4X as General Manager, and earlier worked as a brand and identity designer.

Technology products became my day job 26 years ago, as employee #9 and chief architect at TeamVision, a NASA spin-out whose decision-modeling platform launched to customers including Boeing, Ford, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

About

I'm a Chief Product and Technology Officer. I own product and engineering together, and I still build.

26 years in B2B SaaS and enterprise software. I read the market, architect the product, and ship the code; that pattern drove 8X to 15X growth at three consecutive companies in three different markets.

Two of those companies were later acquired, by Madison Dearborn Partners and Trane Technologies.

I have been recruited directly by a founding CEO and by the chairman of a private equity firm, and every role I have taken since 2010 came through people who had worked with me before.

I lead as a coach. Teams I led at FICO and Nuvolo measured engagement above 90% on formal company surveys; annual attrition across the organizations I built and led has stayed under 1%, contractors excluded, across more than 500 hires; and key leaders have followed me from one company to the next.

Mentor and advisor to founders since 2000, including first-time CEOs.

Based in Seneca, SC.

Get in Touch

Building something where product and engineering have to move together? I'd like to hear about it.

A diligence portfolio with named companies, customers, architecture decisions, and numbers is available on request.

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Diligence portfolio, available on request →