01
AI & Agent Strategy
Practical roadmaps for LLMs, multi-agent orchestration, and automation — grounded in production-ready guardrails, not hype.
CTOx Advisory · Dallas–Fort Worth
Clarity for leaders building
intelligent products & platforms.
I'm Shakil Rahman — a senior product and technology advisor with twelve years shipping AI, mobility, and enterprise platforms across retail, QSR, automotive, and mortgage. I help founders and executives turn ambitious roadmaps into shipped outcomes.
About
A practitioner, not a deck.
Most of my career has been spent inside the room where the trade-offs happen — between engineering, product, design, and the executives funding the work. I've led Agent AI orchestration in QSR, event-driven product data platforms in retail, and connected-vehicle commerce in automotive.
CTOx advisory is the natural next chapter: bringing that depth to founders and operators who need a senior technologist beside them — without the overhead of a full-time hire. Engagements are intentionally small, focused, and measured.
Services
Six ways I work with leadership teams.
02
Product & Platform Modernization
Replatforming legacy systems to cloud-native architectures on AWS and Azure with measurable adoption and ROI.
03
Data & Decision Infrastructure
ETL, Databricks, and Snowflake pipelines that turn raw operations data into executive-ready decision support.
04
Design Systems & UX Governance
Scalable Figma design systems and WCAG-compliant experiences across customer portals, mobile, and internal tools.
05
Fractional CTO / Product Leadership
Embedded leadership for engineering, QA, and data teams using Agile, Scrum, SAFe, and Kanban methodologies.
06
Compliance & Risk Governance
PCI DSS, HIPAA, TCPA, and federal regulatory alignment with enterprise risk frameworks and RAID governance.
Selected engagements
Where the work has lived.
A sampling of the platforms, products, and programs I've led across retail, automotive, financial services, and SaaS.
- QSR & Convenience RetailDigital Product Manager2025 – PresentAgent AI, POS modernization, loyalty & CRM on AWS
- Specialty RetailTechnical Product Manager — Product Data Hub2024 – 2025Event-driven cloud platform powering personalization AI
- Insurance & HealthcareTechnical Product Owner — Claims2024HIPAA platform, 8,000+ docs/week, SAFe 6
- Mortgage & LendingProduct Owner — Unified Comms2022 – 2023Mortgage POS modernization & ChatGPT roadmap
- Automotive & Connected VehicleProduct Owner — Connected Vehicle2021 – 20225G in-car commerce, PCI DSS, Visa API
- Automotive Data PlatformsUI Architect — Data Marketplace2019 – 2020Serverless APIs, WCAG AAA design system
Operating principles
How I think about the work.
01
Simplify complexity
Strip ceremony. Ship the smallest thing that proves the bet.
02
Decisions over dashboards
Data is a means. Crisp decisions and owners are the output.
03
AI with guardrails
Agents earn trust the same way teams do — through evaluation and accountability.
04
Operate to outcomes
Adoption, cycle time, and ROI. Vanity metrics retire on day one.
Testimonials
“Very consistent filling gaps where the retail industry is headed for QSR products and technology investments.”
Marie
Anthem
“Shakil's experience in product, cloud platforms, and AI at our coffee chain has leap-frogged our M365 adoption throughout the org.”
Enterprise Architect
Global Coffee Retailer
“A consistent delivery partner for our retail robots and cloud platform migration.”
Program Director
Retail Robotics
Contact
Let's talk about
what you're building.
Most advisory engagements begin with a 45-minute discovery call. No deck, no pitch — just an honest look at where you are and where the leverage is.