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Technical Strategist & Builder

I turn complex problems
into clarity

Ex AWS Senior Solutions Architect now running Customer Success & Support for a global mix of enterprises and AI-native customers at Private AI. Builder of products and tools like StuffPlanner and vOOHm.

Get in touch See my work
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0-Figure
Enterprise portfolios
Fortune 500
And AI scale ups
0โ†’1
Builder
0+
Years in tech

Career

Where I've Made Impact

Director of Customer Success & Support

2024 - Present

Private AI โ€ข Toronto (Remote from British Columbia, Canada)

Run the Customer Success and Support function for an AI privacy startup. Own the full post-sales lifecycle for a global mix of enterprises and high-growth AI companies across fintech, healthcare and technology, while designing the playbooks, processes and tooling the company will need as it scales.

0โ†’1 Builder Enterprise CS AI/Privacy

Senior Solutions Architect

2017 - 2023

Amazon Web Services โ€ข South Africa

Owned technical strategy for some of Sub-Saharan Africa's largest retail and financial services customers. Partnered with senior engineering and business stakeholders to design and guide multi-year cloud transformations across data platforms, digital channels and core business applications, while mentoring engineers and SAs and contributing to programs that grew the Solutions Architect organisation.

Tier-1 Accounts Enterprise Architecture Mentorship

Cybersecurity Consultant & BD Manager

2015 - 2017

NTT Data โ€ข South Africa

Advised enterprise clients on modernizing security operations and aligning technology with business risk. Combined consulting, solution design and business development to shape security roadmaps and close complex opportunities with vendors and partners.

Security Enterprise Sales

Senior Principal Pre-Sales Consultant

2006 - 2015

Symantec โ€ข South Africa

Led a team of Security Pre-Sales Consultants, driving technical win strategy on major enterprise deals and supporting strategic account planning. Built an account and opportunity tracking tool that was adopted across the EMEA region and was formally recognized for its impact on Symantec's business.

Team Leadership 120%+ Quota EMEA Impact

Earlier Career

2000 - 2006

Various Roles

Worked as a generalist IT consultant for small and medium businesses, implemented and trained customers on enterprise security products, and spent a brief period as a commercial real estate broker - including building a property database to manage listings.

IT Consulting Security Early Builder

Selected Work

How I Create Value

Over time my work has clustered into three areas: Customer Success - owning the post-sales journey and building the function. Enterprise Architecture - designing and guiding complex transformations. Strategic Growth - unlocking adoption and sustainable revenue.

Customer Success

Building CS at an AI Startup

Joined an early-stage AI privacy startup as the Director of Customer Success. Defined the post-sales motion - onboarding, health, renewal and expansion - and put it into practice while personally managing a global customer portfolio across multiple industries.

SoloFunction owner
0โ†’1Built from scratch

Enterprise Architecture

Transforming a Major African Financial Institution

Partnered with a major African financial services organization on a multi-year cloud and data transformation. Helped shape the target architecture, guided migration decisions and supported the teams building out analytics, data science and customer-facing experiences.

Multi-yearTransformation
Tier-1Enterprise account

Strategic Growth

Scaling Enterprise Cloud Portfolios

Managed some of the largest enterprise cloud accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa, acting as a long-term technical partner. Balanced architecture depth with commercial thinking to unlock new workloads, drive adoption and support sustainable, multi-year growth.

8-FigurePortfolio value
ConsistentYoY growth

Building

Products I'm Shipping

StuffPlanner App In Development

StuffPlanner

AI Family Activity Planner

Mobile first app that uses LLMs to generate personalized family itineraries, designed and built by me with a privacy by design architecture.

React Native Expo LLM Integration
vOOHm Platform Live

vOOHm

Out-of-Home Campaign Analytics

Multi tenant SaaS platform I am building for tracking and reporting on Out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaign value for agencies and media owners.

SaaS Analytics Multi-tenant

Tools & Experiments

Heirloom

Hackathon

Voice-first AI business builder created during the Google DeepMind Gemini Hackathon. Generates a complete brand, pricing, and website from voice and images.

Gmailchemy

Personal

Python tool with web UI and CLI to search Gmail and export emails in LLM-optimized formats for AI analysis.

Customer Usage Analytics

Internal

Python tool that ingests monthly usage CSVs from a metering system, calculates month-over-month changes and trends, and flags big drops, spikes, multi-month declines and zero-usage customers. Supports a tiny web UI plus JSON/HTML/PDF exports so CS and leadership can quickly see which customers need attention.

Private AI API Request Builder

Internal

React + Tailwind app that lets users pick a Private AI endpoint (text, NER, analyze, files, etc), configure valid options based on the API spec, and generate ready-to-use API requests and collections for tools like Postman.

Grant's superpower is looking for ways to understand and then simplify solutions to help customers, rather than over-complicating tech discussions. He listens to understand what will really be valuable and works backwards from outcomes.

- AWS Peer Feedback, 2023

Grant brings a calming effect to complex, challenging situations. His cool approach, underpinned by a solution-oriented and succinct communication style, is fundamental to building long-term professional relationships.

- AWS Peer Feedback, 2023

About

The Person Behind the Work

I am a technical strategist who executes. For more than 20 years I have worked at the point where deep technical decisions and commercial outcomes meet.

At AWS I worked with some of Sub-Saharan Africa's largest retail and financial services customers, helping them design and implement the cloud foundations behind analytics, data science and new digital products.

At Private AI I have built Customer Success and Support, supporting a global enterprise customer base while putting in place the playbooks, processes and systems the company will need as it scales.

Along the way I have done a lot of enablement work - designing and delivering technical workshops and Immersion Days, speaking at customer events, and previously serving as a media spokesperson on information security across print, TV, radio and online.

Outside of my day job I build products. StuffPlanner, vOOHm and tools like Gmailchemy are focused, real-world solutions that solve problems for specific people and keep my hands close to both code and customers.

I am based in British Columbia, Canada and work remotely.

Let's Work Together

I work remotely from British Columbia, Canada. Feel free to reach out to connect or chat about customer journeys, technical GTM, or post-sales design.

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