Nico Westerdale

About Nico Westerdale

A clear technology vision turns a good idea into a great product. I help founders, executives, and boards reach that clarity, then build the systems and organizations that turn it into enterprise value.Data points:Gopuff (Series C, SoftBank-backed,$1B to $9B+). One of the engineering directors during the $3B SoftBank raise. My remit was consumer engineering: the mobile app, in-app shopping, and consumer-side experimentation. Backend, APIs, product catalog, and infrastructure sat with peer directors. Helped scale the wider engineering org from 7 (plus an offshore agency) to over 200. Championed and built the company\'s first product experimentation platform, the engineering tooling that made consumer feature decisions metrics-driven.IndeVets (PE-backed, 3x Inc. HealthTech). Recruited by the sponsor to build a capital-efficient growth model. Replaced the external agency with an in-house P&T org and architected the ML-driven algorithmic engine behind a strategic business model pivot. SG & A reduction, targeted expansion, repeatable growth playbook.IncentFit (CTO). Built the $500M-per-year micropayments engine that turned a wellness feature into an enterprise platform for 200+ corporate clients including Corning, the University of Michigan, and Blue Cross Blue Shield.BitsDuJour (Founder). Built one of the first daily-deal channels for independent software vendors. Bootstrapped, ran the company for 8 years, exited profitably.Wharton & Cambridge. Guest lecturer in the joint Emeritus CTO Program at Wharton Executive Education and Cambridge Judge Business School. I teach senior technology leaders how to balance velocity against risk, manage technical debt as a financial instrument, and scale engineering through hypergrowth.How I work today1. Operating CTO for PE-backed and growth-stage companies. Currently IndeVets.2. Fractional CTO and technical advisor through Accelerator CTO. Past engagements: Beneration, Hailify, Shop Ditto, Burnratty Investment Group, IndeVets technical due diligence.3. Board and advisory roles: pressure-test strategy, run technical due diligence, support a sitting CTO through a transformation, or chair a technical sub-committee.My principles: Technology should put people first. Build small things.More writing, case studies, and an AI trained on my own thinking: nicowesterdale.com

Experience

1. Guest Lecturer, Emeritus CTO Program

   Wharton Executive Education

   Oct 2022 — Present · Philadelphia, PA, US

   Guest lecturer in the Emeritus CTO Program, a partnership between Wharton Executive Education and Cambridge Judge Business School. The cohort is mostly senior technology leaders from large enterprises. My angle as a guest is to bring the startup and scale-up perspective into a room that lives mostly in enterprise constraints: how smaller, faster teams make decisions, ship, and absorb risk.Topics I\'ve covered- Treating technical debt as a financial instrument: when to amortize, when to refinance, when to default- Balancing velocity against risk in environments where both a release outage and a missed quarter destroy enterprise value- Scaling engineering organizations from MVP to enterprise readiness without breaking the culture that produced the MVP.Available for guest speaking, panels, and executive education engagements.

Education

• Oxford Brookes University

  Bachelor of Arts - BA

  1996 — 1999

Skills

• Social Networking
• Web Analytics
• Strategic Partnerships
• Web Project Management
• Product Development
• Online Advertising
• Mobile Applications
• Social Media
• Start-Ups
• C#
• .net
• Tour Management
• Information Architecture
• Software Design
• Product Management
• Business Strategy
• Javascript
• Html 5
• User Interface
• Saas
• Google Analytics
• Photoshop
• Html
• User Experience
• Software Development
• Web Development
• SEO
• Web Marketing
• Marketing
• E-Commerce
• Project Management
• Web Services
• Software Project Management
• Booking Shows
• Usability
• Asp.net
• User Interface Design
• Css
• Ajax
• Email Marketing