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🐝 Hear the stories of top best consultants in AI, Design, Software Engineering, and Product. www.swarm.work Peek into how the best technology consultants carve their own path, complete their side quests, and passions in life. Get actionable tips and strategies to improve your fractional lifestyle — we'll present you with the recipes, career paths, and new mental models to try out.

14 NOV

Investing in AI | Tomithy Too (ST Telemedia)

Tomithy plays the role of seeker and investor at ST Telemedia - a VC/PE fund that invests in telcos, data centres, growth stage tech companies in AI, Cybersecurity and Cloud IT . He actively works with target and existing portfolio companies in terms of technical diligence, business strategy and commercial evaluation via their CTO, product & engineering teams. He has a deep interest in governance and reliability of AI systems, pushing the limits of generative AI, multi-agent AI systems, evolutionary algorithms and synthetic biology. Tomithy holds a degree in Computational Biology (Hons) from NUS, Masters in AI program from SMU and is currently pursuing a part-time PhD in AI Governance at SMU. In this episode, we talk about fragmentation and consolidation in the GenAI space, using GenAI as a business strategy, anti-patterns to avoid when implementing searchable enterprise databases, investing in GenAI, and a lot more. 🔹 Spending cycles in AI 🔹 Lessons learned from investing in AI 🔹 Using tech for commercial differentiation 🔹 Pitching during the innovation versus scaling phase 🔹 Opinions on GenAI maps 🔹 Does AI really translate to monetization? 🔹 The overpromise of enterprise databases 🔹 GenAI as the evolution of the business and as a strategy 🔹 Don’t build generic chatbots 🔹 The shortening of the tech adoption cycle 🔹 Platformatizing AI Talk to Tomithy Produced by Swarm — Hire solution architects from Fortune 100s for your AI projects.

33 min
28 OCT

Designing a hybrid org model for CTOs | Anand Krishnan (IBM, thinkbridge, Sensorscall)

Anand Krishnan is the Founder and Managing Partner of thinkbridge, a digital technology and business consulting firm that specializes in helping clients build and deploy tech-forward business strategies that drive outsized value creation. He is also the co-founder of Sensorscall, a senior care platform that helps seniors age-in-place. He was a former CTO of IBM and is one of the leading hives on Swarm. Anand helps growth-stage companies scale and increase their enterprise value, through the meaningful use of technology. In this episode, we talk about designing a hybrid organization for CTOs and external software engineering partners, using a transparent and outcome-first business model, inconsequential versus meaningful technology, finding your impact as a veteran consultant, and a lot more: 🔹 Scaling hybrid teams beyond “big tech” tactics 🔹 Why Thinkbridge moved from hourly to monthly pricing 🔹 Addressing the mid-market transformation gap 🔹 Avoiding “vanity tech”—what really drives impact 🔹 Redefining retention with transparency and accountability 🔹 Anand’s roadmap to agile scaling without trade-offs 🔹 Making tech teams resilient with hybrid models 🔹 Discovery phases as keys to high-value outcomes 🔹 Progress over perfection—the new rule for growth-stage orgs 🔹 AI’s role in leveling the playing field for emerging tech 🔹 Why “boring” tech like EMRs matter 🔹 Aligning tech impact with revenue for real outcomes 🔹 Purpose-driven tech—Anand’s approach to meaningful success Anand's LinkedIn: / anandhkrishnan Work with Anand and thinkbridge on Swarm

40 min
15 OCT

AI GTM and change management for enterprises | Bernard Leong (AWS, Dorje.ai)

Dr Bernard Leong is currently the founder and CEO of Dorje AI, an enterprise AI startup focusing on building the next generation business operating system that enables companies to be productive, efficient, and adaptive. He held regional business roles as the Head of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in Amazon Web Services for ASEAN, Vice President of Airbus Aerial specifically on satellite and drone services in the Asia Pacific, and senior management roles in Singapore Post as the Head of Digital Services and Group Chief Information & Digital Office in Woh Hup. Bernard is the founder and host of the Analyse Asia podcast, and is an active angel investor in web3 and AI startups. He holds a BSc in Science with Merit in National University of Singapore, and PhD in Physics from Cambridge University and has developed machine learning algorithms to search for mRNA targets in the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute from 2003-2005. In this episode, we talk about leading the AI/ML business in AWS, AI GTM for AI consultants, creating a financial ERP startup, why change management is critical to land the biggest enterprises, and a lot more: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bleongcw/ https://www.bernardleong.com/ (0:00) - Trailer (0:30) - Bernard’s Background (2:31) - ERPless world with AI (2:55) - Human Genome Project and mRNA targeting (4:15) - Startup Experience (5:00) - Singapore Post (6:50) - Working with Apple (8:38) - Airbus Aerial (8:48) - AWS (9:20) - Digitally transforming companies (9:52) - Most enterprises use ERPs (10:18) - Why people hate ERPs (10:50) - Data silos in SAP (12:20) - Building an AI first company (13:31) - Enterprise data readiness (15:04) - Structuring data for machine learning (15:21) - Finding patterns (15:37) - Everyone loves transformation no one wants to change (16:03) - Board and C-level conversations (16:33) - Helping the biggest SEA companies (17:16) - McKinsey vs Bernard on data readiness (17:58) - What enterprises are missing out on (19:23) - Expounding on data readiness (20:45) - Finding your AI use case (21:11) - Augmenting productivity (21:20) - Increasing revenue (22:15) - Netflix and AWS machine learning (22:38) - Layers of AI implementation (24:30) - Productivity gains from modern AI (24:41) - Hyper parameter finetuning (25:20) - Dorje.AI AI powered ledger (26:55) - Financial processes into vector embeddings (28:00) - Not underestimating SAP and Oracle (28:40) - Challenging the ledger with AI and modern architecture (29:33) - Why is it hard to use SAP for businesses? (30:09) - Bernard’s ideal world with Dorje.ai (31:29) - Orchestrating data (31:48) - SaaS model upheaval (33:37) - AI GTM and Product (33:59) - Finding PMF (35:28) - Creating hockey stick growth through AI (36:24) - SAP reworks (37:03) - AI OCR built by Bernard (37:53) - Recreating the app with ChatGPT (38:26) - Refactoring the code easily (38:51) - AI coding (39:46) - Cap tables with AI (40:58) - Productivity gains with ChatGPT (41:37) - AI first mentality (43:05) - Automating things with LLMs (44:32) - AI pre-empting problems of ERPs (45:18) - One click transfer (45:47) - What Dorje means (47:46) - Competition and execution (48:42) - Conflict of Visions (49:14) - Constrained vs Unconstrained Founder Visions (50:11) - Best founders (51:07) - Reading the only book on SAP history (52:12) - Building good accounting software (52:27) - How prepared is Southeast Asia? (54:03) - What’s making the money in AI? (54:20) - Sequoia, AI Billion Hole (55:11) - Local data strategy and startup survival (56:14) - Business owner BPO in PH (57:45) - AI Consulting Advice (58:38) - Buy in and productization (59:05) - Business development in Amazon (1:00:04) - Technical POC with 50 customers (1:00:42) - Automating yourself away (1:01:32) - Sales levels conversations (1:02:09) - Creating different sales motions per AI business (1:02:49) - Iterating the product via GTM (1:03:49) - War stories in Amazon

1h 5m
2 OCT

Playing the AI consulting game | Dominic Ligot (Cirrolytix, Data Ethics PH, Aedes.ai)

Dominic Ligot is a data analyst, researcher, software developer, entrepreneur and technologist. He’s the Founder of CirroLytix, a social impact AI company, and Data Ethics PH, an online community focused on social issues such as data privacy, data security, AI-driven discrimination and more. He represents the Philippines as Member of the Expert Advisory Panel of the International Scientific Report on Advanced AI Safety convened by the UK Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology. He led the development of the nationwide data science education program Project SPARTA. He also co-founded the Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines (AAP). Dominic is a three-time global winner of the NASA and ESA International Space Apps Challenges. In this episode, we talk about Gen AI adoption in the Philippines, using AI in the humanitarian sector, go-to-market strategies for AI consultants, and AI safety. Dominic's website Dominic's LinkedIn Ex-MAANG, YC AI Implementation teams to get your AI journey unblocked

1h 2m
23 SEPT

Creating clarity through listening | Indi Young (Time to Listen, Adaptive Path, UX Week)

Indi Young is a solution strategist who uses purpose-focused qualitative data science. She created her method over a 30-year span, and teaches that method in courses, coaching, workshops, books, talks, and through working with teams on research studies. She was one of the founders of Adaptive Path, the pioneering UX consultancy. Indi has written three books, Time to Listen, Practical Empathy and Mental Models. She is at work on another book in the series called Toward Variety — which covers thinking styles. Indi’s method is focused on people, not users. She pioneered opportunity maps, which are mental model diagrams of people’s approach to a purpose aligned with the support a solution provides–or doesn’t. In this episode of Fractional, we talk about how to conduct listening sessions, how to practice rapt attention, and how to unpack interior cognition to influence business and product strategy. Indi's book, "Time to Listen" Indi's website Hire world-class AI consultants

57 min
4 SEPT

Designing for a better world | Don Norman (Apple, Nielsen Norman Group, UC San Diego)

Don Norman was the founding Director of The Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego; is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group; a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and former VP of Apple. His latest work expands the notion of being human centered to consider the impact upon the environment, upon all cultures, and upon quality of life—Humanity centered. This is explained in his latest book "Design for a Better world: Meaningful, sustainable, humanity centered." His most popular introduction to design was through his book — The Design of Everyday Things. Don Norman is now busily engaged in his 5th retirement, busy helping run his charity, the Don Norman Design Award and Summit.In this episode we discuss what he got wrong about human-centered design, how designers should shift from being colonizers to helpers, principles from Apple for design practitioners & consultants, and how designers can change the world. Don's website Don Norman Design Award Design for a Better World Get unstuck - access top talent in AI

1h 6m
7 AUG

Building a legacy with global ambition | Felix Lee (ADPList, Forbes 30U30)

Felix is the Co-founder and CEO of ADPList — the world's go-to platform for high-quality, trusted mentorship. Mentors are from companies like Netflix, Airbnb, and Google. It hosts over 100 Million minutes of sessions on topics such as product design, product management, and coding in 140+ countries. He’s also a Forbes 30 under 30 Asia List awardee and Tatler's Generation T Future Leader List awardee in 2023. In 2021, ADPList raised $1.3 million from Sequoia Capital India and Goodwater Capital. In this episode we discuss Felix’s transformative journey in Silicon Valley, having global ambition, how designers can level up to become founders, and a lot more. Felix's LinkedIn ADPList Swarm: Hire exceptional AI consulting teams for your project

1h 4m
$Deciding to go fractional | Rachel Gogel (Meta, Airbnb, GQ, NYTimes, Forbes 30U30)$

10 MAY

Deciding to go fractional | Rachel Gogel (Meta, Airbnb, GQ, NYTimes, Forbes 30U30)

Rachel Gogel (she/her) is a Parisian creative director, speaker, mentor, and educator. She runs her own consultancy as a fractional design executive. She’s led major brand initiatives at GQ, The New York Times, Meta, Godfrey Dadich, Airbnb, and Dropbox. As a solopreneur, Rachel has been launching editorial publications from scratch, leading org design efforts, designing TV show pitch decks, and building brand systems for global media and entertainment companies. Rachel teaches in the Master’s of Interaction Design program at the California College of the Arts (CCA) and runs the Women in Leadership & Design (WILD) initiative as Chair and AIGA SF Board Member. She has been recognized by Inc. as one of 2016’s “30 under 30 Movers and Shakers” and by Forbes as one of 2015’s “30 under 30" in media. In this episode, we talk about the moments in time you decide you go on on your own, why the term “fractional” resonated with Rachel, why relationships are the best way to get clients, the benefits of tracking your time, how to speak at conferences, and insights on building your personal brand. https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelgogel/ rachelgogel.com

1h 9m

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Fractional by Swarm

Fractional by Swarm

Episodes

Investing in AI | Tomithy Too (ST Telemedia)

Designing a hybrid org model for CTOs | Anand Krishnan (IBM, thinkbridge, Sensorscall)

AI GTM and change management for enterprises | Bernard Leong (AWS, Dorje.ai)

Playing the AI consulting game | Dominic Ligot (Cirrolytix, Data Ethics PH, Aedes.ai)

Creating clarity through listening | Indi Young (Time to Listen, Adaptive Path, UX Week)

Designing for a better world | Don Norman (Apple, Nielsen Norman Group, UC San Diego)

Building a legacy with global ambition | Felix Lee (ADPList, Forbes 30U30)

Deciding to go fractional | Rachel Gogel (Meta, Airbnb, GQ, NYTimes, Forbes 30U30)

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