CV

[Download a PDF version of my CV, last update – May 2024]

Eran Ben-Shahar – Curriculum Vitae – Experienced AI CTO/Tech People Lead

I’m a theoretical physicist with a wide area of expertise and experiences, my passion is around finding smart solutions for IT systems. I offer a creative and unconventional way of thinking, plus leadership skills with passion and motivation to meet targets. I’m very proud of scoring the presales and executing large projects in the level of $1M and above, some of them hit the media. Remarkable projects which I executed / developed / solution architected mainly in New Zealand and Australia: PCI compliance for New Zealand tolling roads systems; Development of face recognition AI models; Re-architecting Loghic Connect AWS infrastructure and solutions; Managing the ITIL release process of New Zealand Transport Agency websites (60 of them); Ongoing Privacy Assessments for all NZTA public facing systems for 7 years; Mentoring 15 deep tech / AI startups at Helsinki University; Development of $1M forecasting energy forecasting tool for primary New Zealand energy sector players; Managing a team of 15 IT professionals as a BA for New Zealand Parliament; Development of the government strategy for emerging technologies what lead Israel to become a startup nation; Nestle’s group online marketing presence in the early 2000’s; And last but not least – I managed to hack the Israeli intelligence systems and was recognised by the head of Israeli intelligence – the level of the Mossad CEO – for my understanding of online security.

 

Personal Information

Experience: I started with computers and machine language when I was 14 years old.

Cell: XXXXXXXXXXX                       

E-mail : XXXXXXXXX

Blog: eran.ben-shahar.com 

Languages: English (Spoken: Working Knowledge, Written: Proficient), Hebrew (Native),

Citizenships: New Zealand, Israel, France     Address:  Sydney, Australia      Family status: Married + 5.

 

IT Skills Summary – Professional Level

  • CTO for several leading products and companies usually around AI, Apps and SaaS.
  • People’s leader of diverse teams distributed across various geographies.
  • Project management: PM for waterfall and Agile projects. I have experience as a PM for both from the client side, and the developers’ side as a vendor.
  • Business Analysis: Senior BA for requirements documents and detailed requirements. Development: JS, Java, C++, PYTHON, PHP, ASP.NET, ASP, HTML, CSS, JS, JQUERY et al, However, I’m tech-agnostic – technology should serve people and products, not vice versa.
  • Databases: MySQL, MS SQL, any ODBC, Cassandra and Block Chains. 
  • Web Servers: IIS, Apache2, Apache Tomcat
  • OP systems: Linux, Windows Servers
  • Intense experience with social media APIs and infrastructure environments like AWS, Vultr etc.
  • Devops: Intense experience with social media APIs and infrastructure environments like AWS, Google Cloud, Vultr etc.

 

Education

M.Sc. Physics, Technion – The Israeli Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.                                    1993-1999

Research field: General relativity and black holes.

  

Employment History

Helsinki University – Deep AI tech advisor           June 2023 – Current,     Helsinki, Finland

I coached 15 startups at Helsinki University and the Maria01 startups hub around SaaS, Deep Tech, AI, product-market fit, usability, validation, and investor relations.

 

LoghicConnect.com.au – CTO                                                     2021 – June 2023,           Sydney, NSW

I was responsible for the build of the platform, coaching a distributed development team of 8, managing AWS infrastructure, ensuring product-market fit, and other tasks (under NDA), such as hands-on AWS, API development, and build of SMTP servers.

 

Facenition.com – Co-founder CXO                                           Aug/2019 – 2021,              Wellington, New Zealand

Product development, architecture, infrastructure, guiding the tech team (C++ / OpenCV, AI models), investor relations, and other tasks.

 

keyQC.com  – Chief Technical Officer (CTO)                                Sep/2018 – 2021                Wellington, New Zealand

Web solutions and cross-platform build services for SaaS startups by leading a team of 10 technicians. Experience with Apache/Nginx on Linux servers, Php/Node.js backend, MySQL, Cassandra database and genuine front end applications based on HTML, Javascript and React.

 

Senior Enterprise Application Web Specialist- at NZTA              04/2012 – Oct/2018,        Wellington, New Zealand

Leader of a small team of developers and DBAs responsible for all the websites and web applications run by NZTA, it is one of the largest databases and the highest traffic web services of the New Zealand Government, with multiple websites (www.NZTA.govt.nz, NZTA Transaction center, and many others) and diverse technologies (PHP, ASP.NET, WebSphere, MS-SQL servers, MS-SQL, MS-Sharepoint, cloud services and more).  

 

IT Technical Consultant at Igniter Ltd                                             11/2008 – 04/2012   Wellington, New Zealand

Development of various full-stack web applications on different stacks for large clients such as IMOWA in Perth, Transpower New Zealand, Meridian New Zealand, and others while leading a team of 5.

 

Senior PM and BA for New Zealand Parliament                          03/2007– 03/2009             Wellington, New Zealand

I led teams of up to 30 people – parliamentary employees and external vendors. My responsibility required wide technical and business experience with the ability to maintain good interpersonal relations with major stakeholders, advancing the projects within a very complicated political environment. 

 

Owner & CTO , Yodfat Communication Ltd        1996 – 2007          Tel Aviv, Israel

Full SDLC for leading clients including Fortune 500, strategic planning, and project management of web campaigns, development of new genuine technologies for internet websites, search engines, and web portals, long-distance education, e-learning, educational games, educational online products, and more.

 

Personal Interest and Extra Study Fields

Martial arts (I stopped after an injury), racing cars (I just sold my GTR, phew!), growing vegetables and doing projects around our hobby farm.I’m a handyman and self-built our solar power system, rainwater system, and other sustainable ideas. I like biblical history, science and philosophy of science.

 

Personal Skills 

Strategic view and approach, ability to create and maintain positive work relationships, capability of running negotiations, capability of formulating and compiling legal documents, proven leadership skills involving managing, developing and motivating teams to achieve their objectives, expressive communication skills. 

 

Office address is at Offix shared space offices where you can lease a private desk or a small startup office, 181 Willis St, Wellington CBD.