I've spent 17 years obsessed with one question

Today, the answer lies at the intersection of data science, AI, and a deep understanding of the buyer journey. But I didn't start there.

I started in 2008 in Ahmedabad, India. Hands on keyboards, learning SEO by doing SEO. Running campaigns, managing clients, figuring out what actually moved the needle versus what just looked good in reports.

But even before that, I was deep in computer science. I studied at the graduate level: operating systems, assembly language, system architecture, database design. That technical foundation shapes everything about how I approach growth today. I can speak to engineering teams in their language, understand how systems actually work under the hood, and now, how AI and ML systems process and surface information. Most growth leaders can't do that.

Over the years, I moved from execution to strategy, from individual contributor to team leader, from agency to in-house. Each step taught me something different. Agencies taught me speed and client management. In-house taught me depth, patience, and how to align growth with business strategy.

The pivotal shift came when I realized that SEO wasn't just a marketing channel. It was a growth system. One that, when built right, compounds over time and becomes a company's most defensible competitive advantage.

That insight changed how I approach the work. I stopped thinking like an SEO and started thinking like a growth operator. I learned paid media so I could understand the full acquisition picture. I learned data infrastructure so I could build systems that scale. I learned how to communicate with boards and C-suites so I could secure the resources to do ambitious work.

I've also lived the founder life. In 2017, I co-founded Squid Sense, an AI-native startup that generated automated insights from Google Analytics data. We secured seed funding from the Government of Gujarat and had angel investment approved. Within six months, Google launched the same concept for free, literally calling it "Insights" inside Google Analytics. We were ahead of the market. That experience taught me what it actually feels like to build something from zero, and it means I can relate to founders in a way that most operators can't.

Today, I lead growth across Bluehost, HostGator, and Yoast at Newfold Digital, a portfolio of brands that powers millions of websites worldwide. Before that, I spent four years at FreshBooks scaling organic from the #3 revenue channel to #1, contributing $30M in ARR.