PD

Pawan Deshpande

Product & Growth for ML & AI • Angel Investor

San Francisco Bay Area

Skills

Machine Learning
Python
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Hostage Rescue
Cross-functional Team Leadership
Product Management
C++
React
Docker Products
Scrum
.NET Framework
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Unix
Git
Natural Language Processing
Business-to-Business (B2B)
Computer Science
Entrepreneurship
Content Marketing
Analytics

Work Experience

2023

  • Head of Product & Growth

    2023

    Linea is the easiest, fastest, and safest way to fix broken data pipelines.

  • Angel Investor / Advisor / LP

    2016

    • Toast (restaurant PoS software - NYSE: TOST) • Upside Foods (lab grown meat - $608M funding) • LinkSquares (legal SaaS - $800M valuation) • Customers.ai (intent data & AI-driven automation) • Falkonry (Operations AI) • Xpertly (Lightspeed-backed MarTech startup) • Viyaat Agro (India farmland cultivation) • Stage 2 Capital (B2B SaaS VC fund) • Stage 2 Catalyst (SaaS Seed Fund) • Scale Angels (Scale AI alum & employee fund)

2022 - 2023

  • Product Leader, Fleet Data Engine & Smart Capture

    2022 - 2023

    Acted as general manager for a new active learning product designed to capture data from edge robot, drone, and autonomous vehicle fleets, enhancing machine learning models at $7B late-stage AI startup. Led cross-functional teams in product, engineering, and design to commercialize the product and define its vision and architecture.

2020 - 2021

  • Product Director, MLOps

    2020 - 2021

    Directed product and growth initiatives for an enterprise-grade data science & MLOps (Machine Learning Operations) platform at this Series-F startup. Achieved a 10x customer growth within six months for a new product. Streamlined sales processes, conducted extensive customer discovery, and aligned the executive team on product strategy, product vision, and integration plans. Played a key role in integrating an acquired company, achieving zero attrition and creating high-impact demos for key stakeholders.

2007 - 2020

  • Founder & CEO

    2007 - 2020

    Conceptualized and launched three successful content marketing products, generating $15M in total revenue and serving over 1,000 customers, including 20% of the Fortune 100. Scaled the company to a 50-member team with a 100% CEO approval rating on Glassdoor. Recognized as an industry thought leader, speaking at over 50 marketing and tech conferences, establishing Curata as a pioneer in content marketing SaaS. Curata customers included Alcatel, Aramark, Barracuda, Bayer, Cisco, Dell, Google, Huawei, IBM, JP Morgan, Lenovo, GE, Google, McKesson, McKinsey, Nuance, Oracle, PayPal, Pitney-Bowes, P&G, Pfizer, Red Hat, Roche, RSM, Salesforce, SAP, SendGrid, Splunk, Symantec, T-Mobile, US Army, Verizon, VISA, Walmart, Xerox, ZipCar & Zendesk.

2005 - 2005

  • Machine Learning Researcher

    2005 - 2005

    Invented a machine learning model for transliterating Roman characters to Indic scripts, available across 120+ languages and installed over 100M times. Featured in the New York Times for significantly empowering women and transgender bloggers. Resulted in a patent filing.

  • Software Developer

    2004 - 2004

    Invented the first “People You May Know” algorithm for social network recommendations by analyzing messages, emails, and calendars. Demonstrated by Bill Gates in 2006, this algorithm laid the foundation for similar features on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Resulted in a patent filing and a Washington Post Op-Ed on data vulnerability.

IMlogic (acquired by Symantec)

2004 - 2004

  • Software Development Engineer

    2004 - 2004

    Co-engineered product from scratch which detects and disrupts illegal peer-to-peer file sharing on corporate networks. Used by over 2,000 companies in 22 industries. IMLogic was acquired in January 2006 by Symantec Corp.

  • Software Developer

    2003 - 2003

    Debugged and integrated NOMAD, a C++ based 3D subsurface visualization application, with KRIBS geostatistical soil profiler.

2003 - 2003

  • Software Developer

    2003 - 2003

    Developed SyncML based synchronization engine to integrate Kubi Client, a collaborative email add-on to Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes, with Salesforce.