CIO Classified

Parul Saini has spent enough time in serious IT leadership roles (Splunk, Zuora, Uber) to know the difference between organizations that are genuinely building AI capability and those that are performing it. Her read?  The governance assumptions that barely held together in the SaaS era are already being outpaced by agent deployments. The executives making AI strategy calls often haven't built anything themselves. And the boards mandating AI fluency are not getting results.

This episode is a direct conversation about what it actually takes to close that gap — from why Parul believes every executive needs to personally build, break, and debug an agent before making another strategic call, to what responsible AI adoption looks like when the security tooling hasn't caught up with the technology. 

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3 Takeaways:

Every executive needs to personally build an agent, watch it fail, and understand why

The same governance gaps that took years to close in the SaaS era are already compounding in AI agent deployments

The most important thing Parul would do immediately in a new CIO role: rebuild how people experience work, starting with what she calls personalized productivity

Chapters:

[00:00] Hands-On AI Mandate

[01:53] Career Journey & Uber Lessons

[04:20] Scaling Trust & Partnerships

[07:20] Founding AI AllyWorks

[11:07] Managing AI Budgets

[16:09] Operationalizing Agents & COE

[21:13] The New CIO Playbook

[23:43] Agent Security & Governance

[25:30] Board Fluency & Leadership

About Parul: 

Parul Saini is the Founder of AI Ally Works, where she serves as a fractional AI and technology advisor for small and mid-size businesses navigating the shift to AI-driven operations. She brings deep enterprise experience from leadership roles at Uber, Splunk, and Zuora, where she built IT organizations that moved from reactive support functions to proactive business partners. At Uber, she led technology operations across a 30,000-person global company and drove early AI adoption starting in 2023. After stepping away from full-time executive life to prioritize her health, she recognized that the small businesses forming the backbone of the U.S. economy had no one with real CIO-level expertise in their corner on AI — and built AI Ally Works to change that.

Guest Highlights:

"I always thought my job was to take that cognitive overload that stakeholders have with regards to technology and take that on myself, so they can focus on their primary jobs and be a hundred percent successful."

"The things that will prevent catastrophe are not moving as fast as the technology enabling these agents. Even now when I talk to my peers, I don't think the answer is clear."

"Unless the agent you've built breaks and you have no idea what broke it—unless you understand what your teams are working with—you won't be able to make the right decisions or the right strategic moves. It's absolutely critical for us to have that hands-on experience right now."

Get Connected:

Yousuf Kahn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yousufakhan/

Parul Saini: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parul-saini-it-management-leadership/

Our Sponsor: 

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Fred Laluyaux has spent 25 years on the same problem: enterprises are drowning in decisions no human should be making. With 50 million digitized decisions across companies like Unilever, Exxon, and Hershey, he now has the data to prove it. When operators override the machine, performance goes down. Not sometimes — in aggregate, every time.

In this episode, Fred breaks down the agentic vs. deterministic tradeoff most CIOs are getting wrong, why the software stack most companies rely on today is heading for collapse, and what a company whose entire stack is just SAP and Aera tells you about where enterprise software is going. Hit play.

3 Takeaways:

After 50 million digitized decisions, the data is clear: when operators override the machine, performance drops.

One Aera customer runs their entire operation on SAP and Aera. Nothing in between. That's where the stack is going.

Fred calls them "born in digital" decisions — they can't be made by humans because the value is gone before the meeting starts.

Chapters:

[03:08] Fred’s Career Journey and Lessons Learned

[05:17] Why Aera Was Created

[05:45] The Vision for a Self-Driving Enterprise

[08:28] The Decision Memory Problem in AI

[10:28] The Reality of AI ROI

[11:58] From Analytics to Decision Intelligence

[12:56] Humans vs Fully Autonomous Systems

[15:28] What It Means to Digitize Decisions

[18:42] How Aera Actually Works

[22:42] Trust, Governance, and the Waymo Analogy

[27:51] Deterministic vs Agentic AI

[29:13] The Cloud Capacity Wake-Up Call

[30:15] Where Aera Fits in the Enterprise Stack

[31:54] Fast ROI and the “4-4-4” Framework

[32:55] Why the Software Stack Is Collapsing

[36:21] Delayering Organizations and New AI Roles

[39:02] Born-Digital Companies and Micro-Decisions

[43:57] Explainability, Governance, and Feedback Loops

About Fred: 

Fred Laluyaux is Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Aera Technology, the leader in decision intelligence and creator of Aera, the first decision intelligence agent. An entrepreneur and Silicon Valley veteran, Fred brings an impressive track record building successful startups and driving technology innovation. Prior to launching Aera, Fred was the CEO of Anaplan, which he grew to a $1 billion valuation. He has held several executive positions at SAP, Business Objects, and ALG Software. As a thought leader on the future of work and host of the Decision Intelligence podcast, Fred frequently shares his vision with influencers through media interviews and speaking engagements at industry conferences. His views have been published in business and trade publications. A technology and startup advisor, Fred is an investor and active board member of several startups in the U.S. and Europe.

Guest Highlights:

"We're in 2026, and the reality is that our models have not changed for 100 years. We're still relying on people to decide how to forecast, how to allocate inventory, how to change a plan."

"We've got enough data, I mentioned the 50 million decisions, to demonstrate that whenever the humans are touching the system and are messing with the recommendation, they actually degrade the performance."

"The autonomy is not another version or better version of my planning tool or my replenishment tool. It replaces the need to have a human touch with that software, and therefore I don't need that software anymore."

Get Connected:

Ian Faison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison

Fred Laluyaux: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flaluyaux/

Our Sponsor: 

This episode is brought to you by Aera Technology.

Enterprise AI has hit its stride. Across industries, companies are moving beyond pilots and proofs of concept, and into real, enterprise-wide results: better decisions, faster execution, and meaningful bottom-line impact. 

Aera's agentic decision intelligence is built to help you seize the opportunity.

Aera dynamically composes decision flows using unified decision data and multi-engine orchestration to drive action at scale. It continuously senses what's happening across your enterprise, recommends and executes the best course of action within your transaction systems, and learns from every outcome to keep improving.

Leading global companies are already using Aera across supply chain, inventory, logistics, and finance, delivering rapid ROI through reduced costs, lower working capital, and better customer outcomes.

This is the self-driving enterprise. And it's here now.

Visit AeraTechnology.com to book a demo

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Nik Seetharaman has watched the offensive side of cybersecurity adopt AI tools at a pace defenders can't match. So, he built a company to close that gap. 

Before founding Wraithwatch, he was the first CIO of Anduril, a defense tech company he joined when it was 100 people and helped scale through hypergrowth. His path (Palantir to SpaceX to building AI-native cyber defense platforms for over a dozen federal agencies) gives him a view most CIOs and CISOs don't have.

In this episode, Nik makes the case that AI has created a forcing function for CIOs and CISOs to finally work together, plus, shares how to run a pilot that actually moves the needle, why blocking AI tools backfires, and what the OpenClaw security drama gets right and wrong.

3 Takeaways:

The CIO-CISO turf war is now a competitive disadvantage. Whoever figures out AI collaboration first wins.

Treat every internal AI rollout like a startup: small cohort, parallel security review, measure the outcome in revenue.

The best investment a new CIO can make isn't a security stack—it's coffee with people.

Chapters:

[01:46] What Wraithwatch Builds

[05:25] AI Forces CIO / CISO Alignment

[07:55] OpenClaw Security Tradeoffs

[09:21] SecOps at Developer Speed

[12:49] Rolling Out Risky Tools

[14:44] Why Leaders Must Use AI

[19:01] How to Reorg for the AI Era

[22:30] Vendor Hunting for Grand Slams

[25:49] $30M Contract and What's Next

About Nik: 
Nik Seetharaman is the Founder and CEO of Wraithwatch, a next-generation cyber defense company building AI-native command-and-control platforms for the United States and its allies. He co-founded the company alongside fellow SpaceX alumni Grace Clemente and Carlos Moss. Before starting Wraithwatch, Nik served as the first CIO of Anduril, a defense technology company he joined when it was approximately 100 people, where he built the cybersecurity function from the ground up and saw the company through hypergrowth. His career spans cybersecurity leadership roles at Palantir, SpaceX, and Andel, giving him a rare vantage point across the offense-defense asymmetry that defines today's threat landscape. 

Guest Highlights:
"You can't have the attackers operating at the speed of a machine out here, and the defenders operating at the speed of a human in here."

"Any business that's able to figure out this equation and execute it successfully is going to just crush their competition—because they're gonna move at warp speed and their competition will still be moving at human speed."

"If I could rewind my first days at Andel, it's not to deploy more controls, it's not to learn about some new security stack or software—I would've just had more coffee with people. The human capital you build doing that pays off in spades. Because that's the thing that's rare in an age where the machines are taking over."

Get Connected:

Ian Faison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison

Nik Seetharaman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikseetharaman/

Resources:

OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai

LangChain: https://www.langchain.com

Cursor: https://cursor.com

Our Sponsor: 

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With a complete contextual understanding of your codebase, Blitzy is ready to be deployed at the beginning of every sprint. Blitzy handles the heavy lifting, delivering over 80% of the work autonomously. The platform plans, builds, and validates premium-quality code at the speed of compute, turning months of engineering into a matter of days.

It’s the secret weapon for Fortune 500 companies globally. To hear how engineering leaders are transforming the way they deliver software, visit blitzy.com. Schedule a meeting with their consultants to enable an AI-Native SDLC in your organization today.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Ellora Sengupta joined EverCommerce as CIO, she inherited the IT of over 50 acquisitions — multiple operating models, fragmented tech stacks, and business units that had zero reason to trust a central IT function. 

Most CIOs would have reached for a consolidation roadmap. Ellora reached for something better: earning the right to be plugged into, instead of just mandating it. In this episode, Ellora tells Yousuf how she's drawn the line between what actually needs to be standardized and what should be left alone so acquired businesses keep their edge. 

Key Moments:

[00:01:00] What Is EverCommerce — and What Makes 50+ Acquisitions So Unusual

[00:03:00] The CIO's Real Job: Standardize Some Things, Protect Others

[00:04:30] What Multi-Acquisition IT Looks Like vs. Organic Growth

[00:05:00] How Ellora Built Trust with Business Units That Didn't Ask for IT

[00:07:30] High-Growth SaaS DNA: Customer Obsession, Speed with Discipline, and AI

[00:09:30] Why AI Doesn't Get Its Own Budget at EverCommerce

[00:11:00] The Personal Story: Starting Over as an Immigrant with Zero Network

[00:15:30] How Her Leadership Philosophy Evolved — and the Family Myth She Unlearned

[00:17:30] Running the SVASE CIO Educational Fund and Giving Back

[00:21:00] The Skills That Actually Matter for Future IT Leaders

[00:22:00] Lightning Round

About Ellora: 
Ellora Sengupta is the CIO of EverCommerce, where she oversees enterprise applications, data and analytics, security, corporate IT, infrastructure, and enterprise PMO across a portfolio built through 50+ acquisitions. She brings a "General Manager" mindset to IT leadership, having scaled technology functions at high-growth pre-IPO companies and $50B+ enterprises alike — including stints at Procore, Samsara, Cisco, and Workday. Ellora was named Bay Area CIO of the Year in the 2022 ORBIE Awards (Large Corporate category). She currently serves as president of the SVASE CIO Educational Fund, raising scholarships and providing mentorship for underprivileged students pursuing careers in technology.

Guest Highlights:

"My success is not how fast can I standardize or make things consistent. My success is — are those vertical businesses ready to plug into the shared services that my team is creating because it makes them better."

"Your team is not your family. In a family, it's unconditional. But in a team you need everybody to perform. It doesn't help anyone if you are carrying along a non-performer — the rest of the team has to carry that slack."

"I don't have a separate budget for AI. I have a budget and I need to make sure that my tools are AI enabled."

- Visit ciopod.com for more episodes. Check out our new YouTube channel and subscribe to never miss an episode.

Our Sponsor: 

Want to accelerate software development by 500%? Meet Blitzy, the only autonomous code generation platform with infinite code context, purpose-built for large, complex enterprise-scale codebases.

While other AI coding tools provide snippets of code and struggle with context, Blitzy ingests millions of lines of code and orchestrates thousands of agents that reason for hours to map every line-level dependency.

With a complete contextual understanding of your codebase, Blitzy is ready to be deployed at the beginning of every sprint. Blitzy handles the heavy lifting, delivering over 80% of the work autonomously. The platform plans, builds, and validates premium-quality code at the speed of compute, turning months of engineering into a matter of days.

It’s the secret weapon for Fortune 500 companies globally. To hear how engineering leaders are transforming the way they deliver software, visit blitzy.com. Schedule a meeting with their consultants to enable an AI-Native SDLC in your organization today.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Two words that make most engineers shudder: code refactoring. Now raise the stakes — refactoring decades of legacy systems inside a large enterprise.

A tech debt-heavy project of this scale needs a leader who has driven complex digital transformations, like Gayatri Narayan (formerly PepsiCo, Microsoft, Amazon). Now, as President of Technology at Builders FirstSource, Gayatri Narayan is achieving a 3–4x increase in engineering velocity since joining less than a year ago. 

Gayatri joins host Yousuf Khan to unpack the strategy behind those results, including how to deploy AI across the SDLC, how to rigorously evaluate ROI on AI investments, and how to lead change across complex enterprise tech stacks.

Key Moments:

01:30 – Why Construction Technology Is Ready for Transformation

04:05 – AI Strategy: Elevating UX and Customer Experience

08:20 – Evaluating AI Investments: ROI, NPV, and Operating Costs

12:45 – Achieving 3–4x Engineering Velocity

16:05 – Humans in the Loop: Craft, Code Review, and AI Amplification

18:35 – Where the Industry Gets AI Adoption Wrong

20:30 – Leadership Advice: Start with the Customer

About Gayatri: 
Gayatri Narayan is a general management executive with more than 15 years of experience leading product, engineering, data science, and operations across global enterprises, with full P&L responsibility and a track record of driving profitable growth through digital transformation. 

She currently serves as President of Technology at Builders FirstSource, where she leads enterprise technology strategy, modernizes legacy systems, and embeds AI into the software development lifecycle to accelerate innovation across the residential construction value chain. 

Previously, she served as Senior Vice President of Digital Products and Services at PepsiCo and held multiple general management roles at Microsoft, including leading Product and Engineering for Intelligent Communications across Teams and Skype as well as Enterprise PaaS and SaaS businesses; she also held leadership roles at Amazon spanning Marketplace Transportation and Logistics and several major retail categories.

Guest Highlights:

“We’ve seen a three to four times increase in engineering velocity — especially in refactoring legacy systems where historically there was very little knowledge of how the system actually worked.”

“With generative AI, companies that have existed for 20 or 30 years don’t have to get bogged down by legacy stacks. They can embrace emerging technologies without spending 18 to 24 months just refactoring.”

“It really comes down to efficiency of time. The developer’s surface area of impact expands dramatically — it’s not just about writing code anymore, it’s about delivering business value faster.”

Visit ciopod.com for more episodes. Check out our new YouTube channel and subscribe to never miss an episode.

Our Sponsor: 

Want to accelerate software development by 500%? Meet Blitzy, the only autonomous code generation platform with infinite code context, purpose-built for large, complex enterprise-scale codebases. 

While other AI coding tools provide snippets of code and struggle with context, Blitzy ingests millions of lines of code and orchestrates thousands of agents that reason for hours to map every line-level dependency. 

With a complete contextual understanding of your codebase, Blitzy is ready to be deployed at the beginning of every sprint. Blitzy handles the heavy lifting, delivering over 80% of the work autonomously. The platform plans, builds, and validates premium-quality code at the speed of compute, turning months of engineering into a matter of days. It’s the secret weapon for Fortune 500 companies globally. 

To hear how engineering leaders are transforming the way they deliver software, visit blitzy.com. Schedule a meeting with their consultants to enable an AI-Native SDLC in your organization today.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.