Why I Joined a 400-Person AI & IT Services Firm After 29 Years as an Operator

For 29 years, I sat on one side of the table.

As a buyer. As the person evaluating vendors, signing off on sourcing strategies, and asking hard questions of the partners who wanted a piece of our delivery budget. I built a 40+ partner network across the US, EU, Middle East, and APAC. I consolidated it down to 8 when "more vendors" stopped meaning "more capability." I sat through more RFP responses than I can count, and I learned to tell the difference between a partner who understood our business and one who was just reciting their capability deck back at me.

I also built things from zero. A $7M data annotation business for autonomous driving, starting with 3 people and scaling to 800+. A $0.5M eLearning service line that became a $5M platform running in 106 countries. Neither of those existed as a line item on anyone's org chart before I built them. Both were exercises in the same thing: taking an idea nobody had fully validated yet, and turning it into something that outlasted my direct involvement.

Looking back, that's the thread that connects all 29 years — not operations for its own sake, but building things that work, then building the case for why they matter to the business.

So here's the news: I've joined Smartborn as Chief Business Officer – Global Growth Strategy.

Why this, and why now

Smartborn is an enterprise AI & IT services company — custom software, cloud, offshore development, SAP, Salesforce, Workday — built for the kind of operational scale I spent three decades either building or buying.

A few things pulled me here.

First, I know what good looks like, because I used to demand it. Every enterprise buyer evaluating an offshore development partner, a staff augmentation model, or an AI delivery capability is asking the same questions I used to ask: Can you actually deliver, or just talk about delivery? Will you scale with us, or plateau at "good enough"? Do you understand our business, or just our budget? I've been on that side of the table long enough to know exactly what separates a real answer from a sales pitch.

Second, the AI data economy is where my operational experience is genuinely rare. Building an 800-person video labelling operation for autonomous driving systems taught me things about AI-enabled delivery — workflow design, quality governance at scale, training and escalation models — that most people advising on "AI transformation" have never actually had to run. Smartborn is building enterprise AI capability for real client outcomes. That's not a slide; it's an operating model, and I've run operating models like it before.

Third, growth is a discipline, not an accident. I've spent years arguing — on this blog and on LinkedIn — that operations shouldn't be treated as a cost center. That the best organizations turn sourcing, delivery, and operational excellence into a growth engine, not just a savings line. As CBO, I get to prove that thesis from the inside: build the growth function on top of an operational foundation that can actually back it up.

What changes, and what doesn't

The honest answer: my job title has changed more than my judgment has.

I'm no longer optimizing someone else's sourcing budget — I'm building the case for why an enterprise should trust Smartborn with theirs. I'm no longer the buyer in the room — I'm the partner across the table. That's a real shift, and I don't want to pretend otherwise.

But the instincts don't change. I still believe the cheapest vendor is often the most expensive decision once delays and rework compound. I still believe trust is the actual currency of any partnership, built before the transaction, not after. I still believe in structured, KPI-driven delivery over heroics. Those weren't opinions I held as a buyer that I'm now conveniently discarding as a seller — they're the reason I think Smartborn is worth building the next chapter of my career around.

What this means for this blog

The C2C Playbook isn't changing its name or its purpose — it's still about turning complexity into clarity, one hard-won lesson at a time. What's changing is the vantage point. I'll keep writing about strategic sourcing, GCC operations, and global delivery, because those problems haven't gone anywhere. But I'll increasingly be writing from the other side of the deals I used to evaluate — what enterprises should actually look for in an AI and IT services partner, what I got right and wrong as a buyer, and what building growth on top of real delivery capability actually looks like.

If you're someone who's sat where I used to sit — managing a sourcing budget, evaluating GCC models, deciding between staff augmentation and managed services — I suspect a lot of what comes next on this blog will be useful to you. Possibly more useful than before, because now I have to be right on both sides of the argument.

What's the one thing you wish the vendors pitching you actually understood about your business, instead of just your budget?

I'd genuinely like to know — it's the question I'll be asking myself every day in this new role.