Ash Lane

Fractional CTO

Dubai · Open to Global & Remote

Professional Summary

Fractional CTO with 10+ years architecting SaaS, edge-native platforms, IoT hardware, and mobile ecosystems. I jump into scaling teams to assess architecture, level up engineering leadership, and deliver high-impact platform work while instituting lean operating cadences. Hands-on with cloud/serverless stacks, shared services, data platforms, and developer experience tooling that keep velocity high without sacrificing reliability.

Core Skills

Technical Strategy

Architecture assessments, technical due diligence, and north star roadmaps
Platform vision for shared services, edge runtimes, and data infrastructure
Build vs. buy analysis, partner/vendor selection, cost optimisation

Team Leadership

Hiring plans, coaching engineering leaders, interim exec coverage
Operating cadences (OKRs, delivery rituals, tech councils)
Culture, performance management, and cross-functional alignment

Delivery Acceleration

Developer experience, CI/CD, observability, and automation toolchains
Security, compliance, reliability, and incident response frameworks
Scaling edge workloads, IoT fleets, and mobile/tablet deployments

Board & Stakeholder Alignment

Translating technical plans into business narratives and investment cases
M&A integration, carve-outs, and corporate venture support
KPIs, dashboards, and risk reporting for investors and executives

Director-Level Scope

Director-level ownership across product roadmap, delivery governance, stakeholder communication, vendor selection, budget trade-offs, and cross-functional operating cadence.
Experience leading product, engineering, operations, GTM, implementation, and partner teams through 0-to-1 launches, regional expansion, and platform scaling.
Translate founder, board, and executive priorities into OKRs, portfolio plans, hiring needs, delivery metrics, risk management, and customer-facing execution.

Professional Experience

Founder & CEO – Fractional CTO

Topolo Technology Inc

Mar 2022 – Present Global / Remote

Acted as hands-on CTO across platform, product, and partner work, setting architecture and delivery patterns for business software and AI-enabled operations.

Defined architecture and shared services for identity/OIDC, CRM, roadmapping, billing, AI gateway, notifications, media workflows, MDM/device operations, admin tooling, and developer onboarding.
Established technical leadership patterns, architecture review, hiring expectations, documentation, delivery cadences, and mentoring routines for lean teams.
Implemented cloud/serverless stack, CI/CD, generated deploy manifests, staging/production release paths, observability, and DevEx tooling to increase release velocity and reliability.
Ran technical due diligence, integration planning, platform-risk reviews, and build-vs-partner decisions for customer and ecosystem opportunities.
Produced board-facing technical narratives, risk assessments, and investment cases for continued platform expansion.

Fractional CTO – Food Tech Platforms

Fresh Ventures – Livefreshr, JustCook, JustFeed

Mar 2014 – Present Dubai, UAE

Acted as fractional CTO for Livefreshr, modernising the tech stack and leading platform rebuilds while recruiting and mentoring the internal engineering team.

Re-architected ordering, logistics, and kitchen systems (JustCook SaaS) for scalability and reliability, introducing CI/CD and observability.
Delivered the Flutter-based JustFeed app and kiosk flows, aligning product, ops, and marketing on a shared roadmap.
Integrated payments, IoT sensors, and analytics while ensuring data governance and compliance for corporate customers.
Built the initial engineering team, defining hiring criteria, onboarding, and performance rituals before handing off to a permanent CTO.

Solution Consultant / Project Manager

XpertLearning

Feb 2013 – Sep 2016 UAE

Implemented enterprise learning and talent management platforms, bridging client requirements, vendor capabilities, and future roadmaps.

Served as the first Cornerstone OnDemand certified solution consultant in the GCC, leading discovery, configuration, and deployments for major regional clients.
Owned RFP responses, solution demonstrations, admin training, and post-launch optimisation for performance, learning, and talent products.
Provided structured feedback and enhancement requests to vendors based on real-world client usage and adoption patterns.

Mid-Market Sales Manager / TPP Partnerships Manager

Cvent

Apr 2019 – Mar 2021 Dubai, UAE

Brought a product-minded approach to selling Cvent's event tech platforms into the Middle East market.

Drove product-qualified opportunities through deeply consultative discovery and tailored demonstrations.
Partnered with product and implementation teams to ensure commitments made in the sales cycle translated into successful deployments.

Technical Skills

Stacks

Node/TypeScript, React, Flutter/Dart, Laravel/PHP, Vue, Rust, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Firebase, Cloudflare Workers/D1/KV/R2, AWS/GCP-aware architecture, Git, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD, and release workflows.

DevEx & Ops

GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Argo, Datadog, Sentry, OpenTelemetry, LaunchDarkly, Backstage, design systems.

Security & Compliance

Threat modelling, SOC2 readiness, RBAC/least privilege, zero trust edge networks, data privacy workflows.

SaaS Tools & Platforms

CRM, GTM & Lifecycle

Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Mailchimp, Braze, Customer.io, WhatsApp Business API, Stripe, Google Ads, and Meta Ads.

Product, Analytics & Support

Jira, Linear, Notion, Confluence, Figma, Airtable, GA4, Looker Studio, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Hotjar, Intercom, and Zendesk.

Delivery, Cloud & AI

Git, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, AWS, Google Cloud/Firebase, Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify, VPS/cPanel, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Sentry, Datadog, OpenAI API, Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, MCP, RAG, vector search, prompt/eval workflows, and agent tooling.

Selected Projects

Topolo platform: Edge-native business software ecosystem spanning identity/OIDC, developer onboarding, CRM, roadmapping, billing/payments, AI gateway, notifications, admin tooling, commerce, workflow automation, media operations, and customer support.
Platform infrastructure: Cloudflare Workers architecture with generated deployment manifests, staging/production targets, service-to-service auth, scoped JWT/JWKS authorization, CI/CD, D1/KV/R2/Vectorize/Queues/Durable Objects, and deployment orchestration tooling.
JustCook SaaS and JustFeed: Food-tech operations and mobile subscription platform covering ordering, inventory, recipes, procurement, routing, payments, lifecycle messaging, and reporting.