AI makes it easy to launch a studio overnight.
It doesn’t replace twenty years of building systems.Or the team to take them to production.
Principal
Ashish Patel
Founder & Principal · Nairobi
Ashish spent fifteen years building software in New York: at Credit Suisse, at SelectMinds through its acquisition by Oracle, and across a run of startups, before becoming CTO of LemonBrew.
In 2020 Ashish joined Antler in Nairobi as a founder, and in 2021 started Alphathesis. The work since has been fractional and embedded technology leadership, from regulated fintech to education.
The role is equal parts roadmap and code: deciding with founders what to build and what not to, then designing the system, reviewing the work, and getting into production issues when they matter.
Career
- 2021–nowAlphathesis — Founder & Principal
- 2020–20231O8 — Founder
- 2018–2020LemonBrew — Chief Technology Officer
- 2015–2018WorkStride — Senior Software Engineer
- 2015CommonBond — Full Stack Developer
- 2013–2015Oracle — Full Stack Engineer
- 2007–2012SelectMinds — Senior Software Engineer · Acquired by Oracle
- 2005–2007Credit Suisse — Technical Associate
Recent engagements
Technical leadership, named.
Fractional and embedded roles held through Alphathesis, described by scope and outcome.
Ndovu
Chief Product & Technology Officer
2025–now
Leading product and technology for a regulated digital wealth-management platform, working with the CEO and COO and owning architecture across investments, payments, KYC, and portfolio management.
- Redesigned the core payment architecture for reliability and scale
- Strengthened authentication, fraud prevention, and platform security
- Introduced release, testing, and technical governance practices as the team scales
Antler
Technical Advisor
2025–now
Technical mentorship and CTO advisory for early-stage founders across Antler’s Nairobi and Lagos cohorts.
- Tech 101 and product-validation sessions for non-technical founders
- MVP architecture and vendor decisions for portfolio startups
- Technical readiness reviews during investment due diligence
ADMI
Fractional CTO
2024–2025
Reset technology strategy, website infrastructure, and IT operations for the Africa Digital Media Institute.
- Led the Website 3.0 redesign, with rebuilt conversion funnels
- Digitized student check-in and visitor management with Airtable automation
- Moved IT support onto Freshdesk and led the shift to a scalable school ERP
Beem
CTO Advisory & Technical Hiring
Worked with Beem’s executive team to strengthen its technical organization for global growth.
- Defined and ran the Chief Technology Officer search: role, assessment, and interview plan
- Advised on team structure, capacity planning, and performance alignment
- Shaped the platform scalability roadmap and hiring plan for key engineering roles
Founder & investor
Both sides of the table.
Ashish has sat in the founder’s seat: through Antler’s 2020 Nairobi program and nearly three years building 1O8, a front desk for in-person and virtual events.
Ashish also backs early-stage companies as an angel investor with the Nairobi Business Angel Network, so the questions investors ask of a technical plan are familiar ones.
Angel investments
- BuuPass
- Filmmakers Mart
- Fingo
- Mosmos
- Nobuk
- OKOA Rescue
- Scale
- Sukhiba
- Zeraki
Personal investments, listed separately from client engagements.
Team
The people who build it.
A standing team across design, engineering, data, and infrastructure. Each engagement is staffed from it to fit the work, with Ashish leading every one.
Easter KeruboUI/UX EngineerNairobi 
John WayodiFull Stack EngineerNairobi 
Joan OkelloData & Machine Learning EngineerNairobi 
Mostafa AlnaggarDevOps EngineerEgypt
Practice
How engagements run
Senior judgment at the top, a hands-on team underneath, and AI used throughout the build.
In practice:
- Ashish owns architecture, key technical decisions, and review on every engagement
- The team is staffed to fit the work: design, engineering, data, or infrastructure
- AI accelerates design, build, and testing; experienced people decide what ships
- One point of accountability from first conversation to handoff