Akshay Sharma, Finance Expert in Santa Cruz, CA, United States
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Akshay Sharma

Verified Expert  in Finance

Technology Advisory Expert

Santa Cruz, CA, United States

Toptal member since January 24, 2023

Bio

Akshay is an entrepreneur, executive, and management consultant focused on solving key business problems. As a technology strategy executive, he has worked with Fortune 500 organizations on data platforms, AI, machine learning, and launching data products. Akshay has a proven track record in bringing products to market and managing technical, operational, and financial risks.

Expertise

  • APIs
  • Cloud
  • Data Engineering
  • Digital Health
  • Machine Learning
  • Markets
  • Platforms
  • Strategy

Work Experience

Entrepreneur In Residence

2021 - PRESENT
Elevance Health
  • Identified, built, and launched digital data products to the market while serving as an entrepreneur in residence.
  • Drove data foundation and data architecture to enable new digital solutions. The key focus was on machine learning and NLP to increase revenue opportunities and decrease operational costs.
  • Developed the go-to-market strategy for commercializing the product.
Focus areas: Data Engineering, Data Science, Markets, Digital Health, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Natural Language Processing (NLP), HIPAA Compliance, Artificial Intelligence (AI), New Products, Cloud, Investor Presentations, Pitch Decks, Pitch Presentations, Business Strategy, Go-to-market Plans, Fundraising, Pricing, Financial Modeling, Cloud Computing, Pricing Consulting, Pricing Strategy, Enterprise SaaS, Software as a Service (SaaS), Management Consulting, Product Strategy

CEO

2020 - 2022
Hammer Of The Gods
  • Co-founded Hammer Of the Gods, a deep tech company focused on bringing AI and machine learning to edge devices. Built and patented container technology for edge computing.
  • Raised over $1 million in pre-seed funding from top Silicon Valley venture capitals. Commercialized the first WebAssembly-based machine learning runtime for any device or cloud.
  • Led sales efforts and closed deals with customers, which resulted in the acquisition of our technology by one of our key customers.
Focus areas: Sales, Product Management, Business Development, Customer Success, Machine Learning, Platforms, APIs, Product Growth, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Management, New Products, Markets, Deep Learning, Cloud, Investor Presentations, Pitch Decks, Pitch Presentations, Business Strategy, Go-to-market Plans, Fundraising, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Pricing, Financial Modeling, Cloud Computing, Pricing Consulting, Pricing Strategy, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Strategy

Executive Vice President

2018 - 2022
Sharecare
  • Joined the company through the acquisition of doc.ai, which has built industry-leading AI for remote virtual clinical trials and is a holder of several patents in the field of private computing on healthcare data.
  • Led AI strategy and implementation for a public company as part of the executive team. Involved in a new market and product creation.
  • Built Silicon Valley's top healthcare AI team and grew it to 50+ engineers before the acquisition. Involved in closing and delivering deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
  • Hired professionals from schools such as MIT, Stanford, and Berkley and places like Google and Facebook to build a world-class talent in AI in healthcare.
Focus areas: Management, Strategy, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Product Growth, Partnerships, Machine Learning, Scalability, Platforms, HIPAA Compliance, APIs, Digital Health, New Products, Markets, Deep Learning, Cloud, Investor Presentations, Pitch Decks, Pitch Presentations, Business Strategy, Go-to-market Plans, Fundraising, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Pricing, Financial Modeling, Cloud Computing, Pricing Consulting, Pricing Strategy, Enterprise SaaS, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Strategy

Head of Product and Engineering

2014 - 2017
Human API
  • Built the nation's first healthcare API for most types of health data, including labs, pharmacies, medical records, and devices. Pioneered consumer-mediated access to health data.
  • Designed and built a clinical data platform. The data platform included ingesting, parsing, data quality checking, and ETL in near real time. Engineered the data platform to achieve robustness and reliability.
  • Drove HIPAA compliance, security, and information security to serve hundreds of healthcare customers.
Focus areas: Data Engineering, Data Products, APIs, ETL, HIPAA Compliance, Docker, Scalability, Platforms, Product Growth, Management, Digital Health, New Products, Cloud, Pitch Presentations, Business Strategy, Pricing, Cloud Computing, Pricing Strategy, Enterprise SaaS, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Strategy

Lead Engineer

2013 - 2014
Ensighten (acquired by Cheq.ai)
  • Built a tag-serving platform. Started as a senior engineer and grew to a lead engineer managing the entire product.
  • Created a client-side data layer for conditional tag firing and a no-code environment for any marketer to build and deploy tags with advanced controls for firing them.
  • Managed and grew the team to support the most critical revenue product for Ensighten.
Focus areas: Data Engineering, Management, Performance Tuning, Cloud Computing, Enterprise SaaS, Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software Engineer (Contract)

2004 - 2010
3M
  • Contributed to enterprise security products by writing a large amount of code across several key enterprise web applications. Worked on in-house tools for performance monitoring.
  • Developed and maintained a suite of common product components. The components were API and web-based products used by many other platform applications.
  • Played a key role as a member of the application platform team working on content management system APIs, platform security, and performance engineering. The platform team scaled three million digital products across 60+ countries.
Focus areas: APIs, Security, Platforms, Infrastructure, Cryptography, Performance Tuning, Scalability

Finance

Fundraising, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Pricing, Pricing Strategy, Financial Modeling, Risk Analysis

Other

Cloud, Data Engineering, Markets, Data Products, New Products, Digital Health, Management, Strategy, Product Management, APIs, ETL, HIPAA Compliance, Platforms, No-code Development, Investor Presentations, Pitch Decks, Pitch Presentations, Business Strategy, Go-to-market Plans, Cloud Computing, Enterprise SaaS, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Strategy, Data Science, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Product Growth, Partnerships, Business Development, Customer Success, Docker, Security, Infrastructure, Performance Tuning, Scalability, Machine Learning, Pricing Consulting, Management Consulting, Market Risk, Risk Modeling, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Sales, Cryptography, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT)

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