I understand your entire business, then build AI into the parts that actually matter.
Not where it's trendy. Where it moves the needle.
Most consultants hand you a deck. I join your leadership team as a fractional Chief AI Officer and build systems your people will actually use.
About
Three things make me useful.
I'm fluent in business strategy, change management, and technical execution. Most people skew one way. The strategist who can't ship. The engineer who can't read a room. The change consultant who's never built anything. I do all three.
I've built and sold companies, advised C-suites, and I spend my days in the terminal building the systems I recommend. That's what makes a fractional CAIO work. Without all three, you're just hiring another advisor.
I've also spent my career in industries where people don't trust technology and aren't sure they need it. I started in tech marketing - Google, Cisco, Adobe - but then spent 16 years building a food marketing agency into Canada's largest independent before exiting. I know how skeptical organizations think because I've been inside them for decades.
What I do now
6 Seeds
I run a consultancy for food and agriculture organizations. We started in communications. Increasingly the work is helping these organizations modernize how they operate. That means getting into the room with leadership, understanding why they're resisting, and building systems they'll actually use.
Faxim (formerly Ditto)
I didn't just advise on AI research. I built a synthetic research platform from scratch. Traditional market research is too slow and too expensive for the decisions my clients face. So I wrote the code, designed the methodology, and shipped it. It runs studies across 14 countries now.
Ivey Business School
I teach AI implementation at the Ivey Accelerator. How to evaluate what's real versus hype. How to place bets without betting the farm.
Future Bites
I write a column for Food in Canada Magazine on AI, trade policy, and where the industry is heading.
Previous ventures
Three exits: Nourish Marketing (Canada's largest independent food agency), Auralis Botanical (functional beverages, national distribution in Canada and the U.S.), and Publish and be Damned (self-publishing platform).
What this looks like in practice
I was presenting to about 70 people at a national trade association's annual meeting. Record attendance. These are people who work in agricultural exports, collectively moving close to a billion dollars of product across 120 countries every year.
I showed them how their scattered information, trip reports buried in email, market data in disconnected spreadsheets, member activities tracked in someone's head, could become something where you ask a question and get an answer instead of sending 50 emails and hoping someone remembers.
The discussion that followed wasn't about the technology. It was: We need to share what we're learning across markets and member organizations. And we need systems that make that possible without adding more work to already overstretched teams.
Then the CEO turned to me in front of the room and said: Can you help us figure this out?
That's the moment I live for in this work. When the conversation about technology becomes a conversation about what people actually need.
Work with me
Fractional Chief AI Officer
Think Executive Engineer. AI Chief of Staff.
I work across your organization, putting AI where it creates real leverage, not where it makes a good press release.
I embed with leadership teams for months. I'm not here to assess and leave. I'm here to build alongside your team until it runs without me.
What that looks like:
- Figure out where AI fits your actual operations (not a generic maturity assessment)
- Build and deploy the first systems with your team
- Get adoption and manage change. The part everyone else skips
- Hand it off so you don't need me forever
Most CEOs know they need this person. They just can't find one on a job board. A fractional CAIO gets you there without a full-time hire you're not ready for.
Speaking
I keynote on technology adoption and what it actually takes to get established organizations to change. Recent stages include the International Peanut Forum (Seville), USAEDC, and USA Rice Federation.
Recent speaking locations
What people say
"He somehow made AI feel human. Andreas connected the dots between technology, consumer behavior, and what actually moves the needle in food."
Louise McKerchar
Vice President, Europe, UK & SE Asia
American Peanut Council
"Not a single slide of fluff. Just sharp insight, clear direction, and a genuine understanding of what our members are grappling with right now."
Gina Tumbarelli
United States Agricultural Export Development Council
"Andreas possesses a rare and valuable talent for translating complex, emerging technologies into practical insights that directly address the pressing challenges faced by leaders in the food and agriculture sectors."
Zhixin Wang, Ph.D.
Food Technology Research Manager (North America)
Puratos