Independent Operating Advisor · Boston · Global
A small number of PE-backed, mid-market and upper mid-market enterprises each year — advised directly by a founding COO who scaled one from inception to a ~$1 billion outcome.
The Practice
Most AI advice in the mid-market is written by people who have never carried a P&L, sat in a deal review, or presented to an audit committee on model risk. I have — for thirteen years — as founding COO of a PE-backed enterprise that scaled from inception to $280M+ revenue, ~$1B enterprise value, 40%+ EBITDA margins, and an 8–10x MOIC for early sponsors.
I now take that operating lens and point it at a narrower question: how does a mid-market or upper mid-market portfolio company convert AI from a line-item on a pilot slide into durable value creation the sponsor actually underwrites?
I do not sell licenses. I do not staff projects. I do not write slides on top of your team's slides. I sit at the operating elbow of the CEO — and, where relevant, the sponsor's operating partner and the chair — and raise the quality of the decisions that determine the exit.
“You want an advisor who has already done the job you are asking your CEO to do — in the geometry and timebox a sponsor expects.”
Approach
Each discipline carries its own cadence, its own written artifacts, and its own line to the board. They are not services. They are the joints of a single operating system for AI-era value creation.
A written thesis — not a workshop deck — mapping where AI earns its cost in your specific P&L. Use-case portfolio, moat logic, capital allocation, and the two or three bets a sponsor can underwrite at the next valuation event.
The hard part — redesigning the work, not installing the tool. Where the org chart, the process, the metric and the incentive have to move together for AI to stick.
The material that lets the audit committee sleep and the sponsor diligence cleanly. Risk taxonomy, EU AI Act exposure, model risk management, incident response — written in language the board already speaks.
AI narrative that stands up in the VDR, the management presentation, and the quality-of-earnings review. Built by someone who has lived through a $500M recapitalization, a $540M partial exit and a signed $1.2B transaction.
Engagements
Every engagement is bespoke. These are the shapes it usually takes. Fees are commensurate with scope, seniority and the capital at stake; they are discussed privately once fit is established.
Sponsor-side
Sit inside a PE firm's value-creation team for a portfolio cohort. AI diligence on new deals, 100-day plans for platform and add-on investments, and direct CEO coaching across the book.
Portfolio-side
Named advisor to a portfolio company CEO through a defined value-creation window — a hold-period transformation, a carve-out, a bolt-on integration, or the run-up to a sponsor transaction.
Board-side
A single board or committee engages me as independent counsel on AI strategy, risk, and governance — between board meetings, before critical decisions, and at the audit committee table when required.
Sponsor / LP Education
A 100-hour, atoms-to-strategy curriculum for a single firm's partners, operating team, or a portfolio-company C-suite. Privately delivered. Written from the operating chair, not the classroom.
Track Record
Saurabh is an independent operating advisor based in Boston. He spent thirteen years as founding COO of ACT Fibernet, India's leading fiber-optic ISP, scaling the business from inception to $280M+ revenue, ~3M customers and ~$1B enterprise value, and serving as principal sponsor-facing operating interface through a $500M recapitalization, a $540M partial exit and a signed $1.2B transaction.
Earlier he spent seven years at Procter & Gamble leading one of its fastest-growing regional P&Ls, and began his career as an engineer at Tata Steel.
He is a Sloan Fellow of MIT Sloan School of Management (cross-registered at Harvard Business School), a former Visiting Fellow at MIT Sloan and the Harvard Kennedy School, and a retained consultant at Stanford GSB SEED. He holds a PGDM from IIM Calcutta (full scholarship) and a B.Tech (Hons) in Energy Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, where he was elected Institute General Secretary.
He was featured as founding COO in Credit Suisse's 2021 100 Unicorns report and received the Outstanding Leadership Award at the Internet 2.0 Conference (2023). He is a member of the MIT Dean's Circle and MIT Giving Leadership Circle.
Perspectives
A small set of long-form essays for boards, sponsors and CEOs. More is published privately to engaged clients than appears here.
A director's checklist — inventory, accountable owner, EU AI Act exposure, vendor data terms, incident response, bias regime, model lifecycle. Written in the language the board already speaks.
Request the essay →The prompt → retrieve → fine-tune → train ladder, read from the P&L rather than the paper. Where the moat is, where the vendor risk is, and what a sponsor should underwrite at this valuation.
Request the essay →In professional services and in service-heavy portfolio companies, AI collapses the bottom of the pyramid. The firms that win will rebuild the learning model deliberately. A note to CEOs and sponsors who still staff the old way.
Request the essay →Engage
I take on a limited number of engagements at any one time. If a sponsor, a chair or a CEO is weighing a decision that AI materially affects — a 100-day plan, a hold-period thesis, a carve-out, a transaction — I'm happy to have a private conversation and tell you, honestly, whether I am the right advisor or whether you need someone else.
Prefer email? advisor@saurabhmukherjee.com