Advisory · Board · CAIO
Advisory & Board Engagements
Alongside building Thinkerwave AITech, I take on selected Board / Independent Director, Strategic Advisory, and Fractional CTO roles — drawing on 30 years of production engineering and my prior CTO tenure at blackNgreen and Nexiva.
What I'm open to
Chief AI Officer (CAIO)
For enterprises adding a CAIO layer to lead AI strategy, agent architecture, and production AI deployment alongside an existing CTO/CIO function. Fractional CAIO engagements considered.
Independent Director / Board
For AI startups (Series A–C), enterprise SaaS companies, and tech-enabled businesses where 30 years of operating depth on production AI, voice AI, and enterprise scale would be useful.
Strategic Advisor (AI Startups)
For founders building Voice AI, AI Agent, or enterprise SaaS platforms — particularly around production-readiness, multi-tenant architecture, multi-region deployment, and AI evaluation discipline.
Fractional CTO / Technical Diligence
For VCs and PE funds requiring technical diligence on AI investment opportunities, or early-stage startups needing experienced CTO oversight before a full-time CTO hire is right.
What I bring
- 30 years in production engineering. Former CTO at blackNgreen (2013–2026) — grew the company from 5 enterprise customers to 160+, scaled past $20M ARR, reached 290M+ end-users across Asia, MENA, Africa, and South America.
- Voice AI specialist. Former CTO at Nexiva — led the AI voice agent platform from concept to global launch in under 12 months, live across India, MENA, and LATAM at enterprise scale.
- AI product builder and architect. ThinkerWave — an AI product for high-stakes decisions, built on original self-evolving-agent research — patent application 202611044024 filed at the Indian Patent Office, April 2026.
- Consumer voice product experience. Led MagicCall — 14M+ downloads on Google Play, real-time voice processing at consumer scale.
- Global engineering leadership. Built and led engineering organisations across India (Gurgaon, Chennai), Dubai, and parts of Africa — 50+ direct reports.
- Public credibility. Quoted in Business Insider Africa (Dec 2024) on the EVA AI platform delivering 40% cost reduction and 94% CSAT for enterprise customers including Orange, MTN, and Africell.
- Multi-venture operator pattern. Building across three layers simultaneously: Nexiva (commercial voice AI), blackNgreen (enterprise SaaS), and ThinkerWave (AI product) — useful pattern for boards and CAIO roles where multi-stakeholder judgement matters.
Areas of operating depth
- · Voice AI & conversational systems
- · AI Agents & Agentic AI architecture
- · Large Language Models (LLM) in production
- · AI evaluation & observability
- · Real-time voice processing at scale
- · Multi-tenant SaaS platform engineering
- · Enterprise SaaS scaling (5 → 160+ customers)
- · Customer Experience Platforms (CXM / CCaaS)
- · Multi-region deployment (India, MENA, Africa, LATAM)
- · Engineering organisation building (50+ direct reports)
- · Technical diligence for VCs and PE
- · Production AI deployment & reliability
How to engage
For board, CAIO, advisory, or fractional-CTO inquiries, the fastest path is a short email outlining the company, the stage, the role you're considering, and the time commitment you have in mind.
Recruiters and VC talent partners welcome.
Background and full operating context: About Vikas Goel. Current and past ventures: Ventures & Projects. Independent AI research: Research.