I'm Shivam Ghiya, a fractional CTO and AI strategy consultant working with founder-led companies across India, US, the UK and Australia. I work out how your business actually runs, design the system it deserves, then build it or run the people who do, covering technology strategy, AI adoption, process automation and systems integration.
Sectors worked in: Healthcare, Insurance, Real Estate, Fintech, Logistics, Accounting.
Every vendor you speak to has a commercial reason to recommend the thing they sell. That's how companies end up with four tools that don't talk to each other, an AI pilot nobody measured, and a rebuild every three years.
I sit on your side of the table instead. I take no referral fees and no partner commissions, which means I can tell you the honest answer: buy it, use what you already own, or don't build it at all. When something does need building, I'm the one accountable for it landing.
Skipping step one is why technology spend fails. Skipping step four is why it stops working eighteen months later.
Before a single tool is chosen, we map how the business actually runs.
Where the revenue comes from, where the hours disappear, which handoffs break, and what the team has already tried. Most failed technology spend is a diagnosis problem rather than an engineering one.
A written architecture you can hold a vendor accountable to.
Buy versus build, decided per component with real numbers. Integration boundaries, data ownership, security posture and a sequenced roadmap, so the first release is useful and the third one is not a rewrite.
We either build it, or we run the people who do.
Small pieces we implement directly. Larger programmes we scope, brief, and hold vendors and in-house engineers to. You get one accountable technical owner instead of a stack of contracts nobody is reading.
Systems decay. This is the part most consultants skip.
Instrumentation, a review cadence, and an owned backlog. Automations get audited, AI outputs get measured against real outcomes, and the architecture keeps up with the business instead of falling behind it.
Get these right and the implementation is straightforward. Get them wrong and no amount of engineering saves it.
Scored against your actual workflows and run costs rather than a vendor demo. Most shortlists get shorter after this conversation.
Ranked by hours reclaimed against effort to build. The obvious candidate is rarely the profitable one.
Decided per component, with the five-year cost of both paths written down. Building is a liability you renew every month.
One data model, explicit access boundaries and an audit trail, designed before the first integration ships rather than after an incident.
Most companies need a mix. We work out which on the first call, including whether you need me at all yet.
Senior technical ownership without a senior technical salary.
Ongoing · 2 to 6 days a monthDecide which AI is worth adopting, and which is only a demo.
Fixed scope · 3 to 6 weeksFind the hours your team is losing, then take them back.
Fixed scope, then retainedMake the tools you already pay for talk to each other.
Project · 4 to 12 weeksHealthcare, insurance, real estate, logistics and fintech. The pattern repeats even when the industry doesn't.
Hospitals were handling insurance claims by hand, with no real-time view of where any file had reached and no consistent documentation trail. We mapped the claim lifecycle end to end, then built a digital platform that tracks every claim, verifies documents on intake and keeps pre-authorisation in one dashboard.
The platform had been half-built on an ageing CodeIgniter 3 codebase with an unoptimised schema, no documentation and pending integrations with external verification partners. We redesigned the data model, rebuilt the application on CodeIgniter 4, and reworked every investor flow behind encrypted APIs.
Nine years of watching real estate teams lose deals to slow follow-up turned into a product. Everything else on this site is advice; this is the exception, and I will still tell you when you don't need it.
The AI real-estate CRM we built after watching the same leak in every brokerage: leads arrive faster than anyone can answer them.
SquareMeter captures enquiries from every channel, scores and assigns them automatically, and follows up over WhatsApp and voice while your agents are still in a viewing. Listings, leads and clients live in one place, and the AI voice agent picks up the conversations a person would otherwise get to two days late.
Built, run and supported by the same person advising you. If a brokerage is better served by something off the shelf, I will say so. The product does not change the advice.
Shivam compiled an ERP portal for our insurance business, and as a result our own system provides everything, along with a customised dashboard.
Chirag VyasCompleted the work within the agreed timeline, with the must-have functionality, and stayed responsive to our queries through the whole development cycle.
Poonam Rohit GargGreat support from beginning to end. Genuinely informed, and went the extra mile at every stage. I would recommend them unreservedly.
Aaron AgarwalTrustworthy, creative and professional. Exactly what you need when you have no technical background of your own.
Aparna MohanAnything not answered here, ask me directly on the call.
An agency is paid to build. I am paid to decide. That means I will regularly tell you the answer is to buy something off the shelf, use a tool you already own, or not build the thing at all, which is advice an agency has no commercial reason to give you.
Both, and I am explicit about which. Smaller systems I implement directly. Larger programmes I architect and then orchestrate, selecting vendors, briefing them, and holding delivery to the design. You get one accountable owner either way.
That is usually the reason to start. Most of this work is with founder-led teams making six-figure technology decisions without anyone senior to pressure-test them. I translate between the business and whoever is building.
It opens with a diagnostic: two to three weeks of mapping how the business runs and where the technology is failing it. That ends in a written architecture and a ranked roadmap. From there we either scope a project, or move to a retained fractional CTO arrangement.
Yes. I take no referral fees or partner commissions. Recommendations are scored on your workflows, your data-handling constraints and the real cost to run, which frequently rules out the tool everyone is being sold this quarter.
A discovery call happens within a few days. A diagnostic can usually begin inside two weeks. Book a call and you will get a straight answer on fit, including if the honest answer is that you do not need me yet.
Most of what I would tell you on a call is already here. Read it first and the call gets to the useful part faster.
A fractional CTO is a senior technology leader working with you part-time. What they do, how they differ from consultants and agencies, when you need one, and what it costs.
6 minAn agency is paid to build; a fractional CTO is paid to decide. How the two differ on incentives, accountability and cost, when each is right, and how to use both together.
6 minHow fractional CTO pricing works in India: day rates, monthly retainers, fixed-scope diagnostics and equity. What moves the number, and how to compare it against a full-time hire.
Thirty minutes, no pitch. You describe what's not working; I tell you straight whether this is an advisory problem, a hiring problem, or something you can fix yourself next week.
