Strategic Operations Executive | COO | Digital Transformation & Operational Excellence | Process Optimization | P&L Management | Healthcare & Higher Education

As a Strategic Operations Executive with nearly 18 years of proven success, I specialize in driving organizational transformation, operational efficiency, and sustainable growth across healthcare, higher education, digital finance, and media. My career is defined by delivering measurable results, including $12M+ in annual cost savings, operational restructures that doubled productivity, and seamless M&A integrations that strengthened enterprise value.

I partner with executive leadership to align operations with corporate strategy, improve financial and operational performance, and build resilient organizations equipped for long-term success. My expertise spans process optimization, Lean Six Sigma, and enterprise-wide program management, where I now leverage AI-enabled tools to accelerate results. I have successfully scaled national operations, launched and sold multimillion-dollar businesses, and led diverse teams across multiple countries.

Recognized by Industry Era Magazine as a Top 10 Industry Leader, I bring a strong record of translating strategic vision into actionable results. With experience leading high-performing teams of 25+ across global markets, I focus on driving efficiency, advancing digital transformation, and building innovative solutions that deliver meaningful impact for organizations and their stakeholders.

Chris Muller

CEO at HowNow. Author of 'Learning at Speed'. Host of the 'L&D Disrupt' Podcast.

From award-winning high growth technology businesses to successful Sri Lankan street food restaurant groups, I've spent more than a decade building businesses from the ground up and scaling them. As for filmmaking, I produced and directed ads, music videos, documentaries (for WHO, Royal Society of Science) and later a feature film that travelled the world being screened at festivals (and picking up best film!). 

I'm currently the CEO and Co-Founder at HowNow, one of the fastest-growing technology companies transforming the way organisations approach learning across the world. Our clients include tech unicorns GymShark and Checkout.com as well as global enterprises such as Mercer, Telefonica and Investec to name a few. As mentioned by Forbes and TechCrunch, we're one of the edtech companies to watch out for, backed by industry influencers like Mark Pearson (founder of MyVoucherCodes.com), Andy Murray (Tennis Champion), Michael Whitfield and Chris Bruce (founder of Thomson Online Benefits) and Alwin Magimay (Previously digital leader at McKinsey, KPMG and Accenture). 

I have been a speaker at over 100 events including HR Summit, AI Talks, Google Campus, London Tech Week and a mentor for Startup Britain and a Guest Lecturer on Entrepreneurship. I have been recognised by Virgin Media Business as one of the top 30 young innovative founders in the country as well as one of the top Asian Stars in Tech by KPMG. I'm a thought-leader on Startups, Technology and Workplace Learning contributing to publications such The Guardian, The Telegraph, Startups.co.uk, and Training Industry to name a few. I was also recently featured in Bloomberg's documentary on Entrepreneurial Mindset.

Nelson Sivalingam

Someone once told me I have “borderline delusional levels of optimism.”

I took it as a compliment.

Because when you’re building a company, a team, a product that might flop very publicly, a bit of delusion helps.

You kind of need to believe it’ll work before there’s any evidence it will.

I came across a study this week that made me smile.

It found that optimism is linked to living 11–15% longer on average. And a higher chance of reaching 85+. Even after controlling for health, wealth, lifestyle, all of it.

So apparently the delusion might be good for me. But here’s what I actually think is going on.

Optimistic people don’t just “feel positive.”
They stay in the game longer.

They try again.
They have hard conversations.
They assume problems are solvable.
They don’t interpret every setback as a verdict on who they are.

That compounds.

In business.
In relationships.
In health.

And in a world where cynicism sounds intelligent and optimism can sound naïve… it’s easy to lean the other way.

But I’d rather be the person who believes there’s a way through.

Worst case? I’m wrong and I tried.
Best case? I live longer.

Feels like decent odds.

Out of curiosity, do people see you as the optimist in the room? Or the realist?

graphical user interface, text, application, email

AI is making L&D more efficient but it’s not automatically making L&D more effective. There’s a difference.

Right now, it’s never been easier to create content.
Spin up a course. Make it look polished in minutes. It feels productive.

But we’ve already learned this lesson once.

A content library with 1 million courses doesn’t create capability. 
It creates choice paralysis.
And if we’re not careful, AI just helps us build our own shiny, internal version of the same problem.

Efficiency can give a false sense of value.
“We shipped 30 new modules this quarter.” Great.
Did anyone get better at their job?

The smarter play isn’t using AI to create more. It’s using AI to do the harder stuff that makes the difference: 

– Identify the skills the business actually needs
– Surface and curate what already exists
– Connect learning into meaningful pathways
– Nudge people as work happens
– And track whether skills are genuinely improving

That’s why the AND Digital story matters.

They reported a 50% reduction in learning curation time.
Not because they pumped out more content.
But because they used AI to cut the manual searching and align learning to real capability needs.

Less building for the sake of building. More focus on performance.

AI shouldn’t make us busier content creators.
It should make us sharper capability builders.

If we’re honest, are we using AI to move up the value chain?
Or just to produce prettier noise, faster?

Link to the story in the comments. 

#Skills #Learning #AI

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