Dinker Gulati | Business, Technology and People

Every hard problem is three problems at once.

A business problem, a technology problem and a people problem. Most solutions address one. Durable ones address all three.

Business

Clarity on what matters, where value is created, and which trade-offs are worth making.

Technology

Platforms, data and AI as levers for growth, chosen for what they change, not for what they are.

III

People

The teams, incentives and ways of working that decide whether any plan survives contact with reality.

What I believe after a decade of doing the work.

AI won't fix a broken operating model.

AI amplifies whatever system it sits in. Automate a messy process and you get a faster mess. The gains come from redesigning how work flows first, then letting automation carry it.

Delivery is the best growth strategy.

Clients rarely renew because of a pitch. They renew because of how the work gets done. Trust earned in delivery is what turns a project into a partnership.

Strategy fails in the handoff.

The gap between the plan in the boardroom and the team doing the work is where most value leaks. Closing it is a structural problem, not a motivational one.

Build for the organization you are becoming.

Scaling across teams, markets and borders breaks whatever was held together by goodwill. Governance, clarity and culture have to be designed before headcount arrives.

Where the thinking met the numbers.

Margin turnaround in a managed services practice

Operating model · AI-enabled delivery · Unit economics

Context: A managed services portfolio was running at 16% gross margin against a 40% target.
What I did: Redesigned the operating model and resourcing with a data-driven approach, introduced AI-enabled workflows and automation across reporting, status updates and execution, and tightened scope governance across the portfolio.
Result: Gross margin rose from 16% to 50%+ within 12 months. Developer efficiency improved from ~37% to ~65% while delivery output held steady.

Turning delivery into a retention flywheel

Account growth · Service design · Client advisory

Context: Client relationships were structured as standard retainers focused on implementation work, which limited renewal and expansion.
What I did: Added CRO and SEO capabilities alongside core implementation to complete a full-stack offering, and piloted an Embedded Strategy Model for key accounts in place of the standard retainer.
Result: A 60% year-on-year increase in client retention and 20+ SOW renewals, including anchor accounts.

Standing up an offshore delivery centre

General management · Entity setup · Cross-border operations

Context: The business needed its own offshore delivery capacity, operating under a dedicated local entity.
What I did: As General Manager, owned the build end to end: incorporation, statutory compliance, banking, governance, transfer pricing strategy with a Big Four advisor, and HR and payroll infrastructure.
Result: A fully operating entity supporting a combined cross-border delivery organization.

A decade across eCommerce, SaaS and FinTech.

Tidal Commerce

Head of Practice and General Manager, India

Built and scaled the D2C and Managed Services practice and stood up the firm's India delivery entity as General Manager.

2024 - Present

Inspiration Commerce Group

Technical Program Manager

Led post-acquisition platform integration across a multi-brand eCommerce group.

2023 - 2024

CANNEX Financial Exchanges

Project Manager, Digital Transformation

Led a legacy system migration in a regulated financial data environment.

2022 - 2023

Actyv.ai

Product Manager, Founding Employee

Defined product strategy for an open banking FinTech through its seed raise.

2019 - 2020

bswift (Evive)

Project Manager, Platform Operations & Delivery

Led a waterfall-to-agile transformation across platform delivery.

2017 - 2019

I solve problems at the intersection of business, technology and people.