Fractional AI Operations Lead
I help growing companies turn scattered AI experiments into better ways of working—with clear priorities, practical guardrails, and hands-on implementation.
Startup operations at Gradient. Enterprise AI work at Microsoft.
Ways to work together
Ongoing leadership, a defined project, or a focused workshop. We agree on scope and schedule before we start.
Your teams are experimenting with AI, but nobody owns the company-wide effort. I bring leaders and internal champions together to set priorities, agree on guardrails, and get useful pilots into everyday work.
A prioritized roadmap, clear responsibilities, and a team equipped to take over as my support tapers.
A process is stuck between teams, an agent is falling short, or an important initiative needs an owner. I work through the details with the people doing the job, build and test where useful, and lead implementation.
An improved workflow, tested agent, or completed rollout—with documented decisions and a practical handoff.
Your team needs concrete possibilities before committing to a project. Bring people together for an AI Value Discovery Workshop, or a speaking engagement on measuring AI’s business value.
For the workshop: 1–2 promising opportunities and clear next steps for investigation.
Selected work in AI & operations
01 / AI WORKFLOWS
Built and calibrated an agent using real requests and expert judgment, uncovering exceptions missing from the documentation. Delivered a working prototype, explicit decision rules, and evaluation cases. Median elapsed time from initial submission to final approval fell from 16.2 to 3.5 hours (78%) during the work. This observed change is not an isolated measure of the agent’s impact.
02 / AI VALUE
Invited to speak about practical AI value realization at the World Bank Group’s Accelerating AI event in Washington, DC.
03 / ORDER-TO-CASH
Stood up Gradient's order-to-cash (O2C) operating process as B2B hardware deployments scaled, spanning customer/vendor setup, contracting, POs, invoicing, and revenue recognition. Aligned six functional leads on ownership, handoffs, and exception paths—reducing stalled deals and accelerating contract-to-cash. Also reconciled revenue information across four systems to identify discrepancies.
04 / AI OPERATING MODEL
Established a decentralized AI Task Force with champions across functions, hands-on pilots, office hours, and peer demos. Helped develop AI policies, reviewed shadow AI use, and administered company AI tools. Connected experimentation across teams and created space to discuss risks. Voluntary AI-seat adoption grew 45% in one quarter.
05 / PROGRAM OPERATIONS
As operations lead for a $30M USAID program in Venezuela, I managed financial execution, procurement, and compliance amid open hostility from the host government and stringent U.S. federal oversight. We earned multi-million-dollar contract expansions while I lived as an expat in Caracas.
06 / ENTERPRISE AI
Ran operations and finance for the Microsoft team behind the Frontier Firm AI Initiative with the Harvard Business School AI Institute. The program brings together C-suite leaders from major global enterprises to explore how AI is reshaping their work, business processes, and organizational performance.
What could your team accomplish that it can’t do today?
Explore how AI could help your team serve more customers, make better decisions, or deliver work that isn’t feasible today.
Through individual reflection and collaborative discussion, we connect what people across your team know about the work and decide which opportunities deserve a closer look.
1–2 promising opportunities, the business outcomes they could improve, and clear next steps for investigation.
Bring this workshop to your teamAbout me
I spent nearly five years at Gradient, from stealth through its second hardware product launch, working across commercial, finance, and operations as Chief of Staff to the COO/CFO. My experience also includes AI work at Microsoft and launching and running U.S. government-funded programs in Venezuela, Bosnia, and Equatorial Guinea. I listen closely, bring people along, and stay with the hard parts until the work is done.
Based in Washington, DC. Available for remote engagements.
A few practical questions
Yes. I build and refine agents and workflow prototypes, test them with real cases, and document decision rules and exceptions. Where production engineering or integrations need specialist support, I coordinate that work and clarify the handoff.
Hardware is a particular strength: I understand the operational work behind getting a physical product to customers. I also work with enterprise teams and other growing organizations on operations and AI projects.
The introductory scoping conversation covers your priorities, current AI activity, and the support you already have. If there’s a fit, I propose a scope for further work. Detailed assessments, workshops, and implementation are scoped separately.
Let’s get into it
Bring me the AI experiments that need coordination, the systems questions holding up a decision, or the workflow that needs hands-on help.
We’ll talk through what’s happening and whether I’m the right person to help.
Prefer to write first? Tell me what you’re working on.
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