Ben Pickett Consulting

Stop guessing.
Start moving.

25 years of building production systems at global scale, leading through transformation from the inside, and delivering real outcomes, not presentations about outcomes. If your AI initiative is stalled or your platform is holding you back, let's talk.

Work With Me How I Can Help
18 days
Database refresh cycle cut to 39 minutes
Multi-$M
Software investment fully returned in savings within one year
104K
Manual work hours eliminated through automation
600M
Transactions/month across 3,000 services in production
123
Global locations supported across AWS, Azure, and Alibaba
6x
"Highly Successful" — Nike's top performance rating
Who I Work With

Executive teams who want results, not reports.

I work with mid-market and enterprise organizations who are serious about getting things done. Not more slides. Not another 90-day assessment with no decisions attached. Actual results.

My clients want someone who has actually done this work. I have spent 20-plus years managing critical infrastructure at Fortune 500 scale, co-founded an enterprise AI company, and served as an elected mayor making budget and platform decisions with public accountability. I know what accountability feels like on both sides of the table.

CIOs and CTOs

Wrestling with AI strategy, governance, and the gap between executive expectations and engineering reality. I've lived on both sides.

CEOs and COOs

Who need a trusted technology perspective without hiring a full-time executive. I operate at the strategic level without losing the technical detail.

Transformation Leaders

Handed an ambitious mandate and a tight timeline. I have broken through production stalls that had cost organizations months of schedule before I walked in.

Inheritors

Technology leaders who inherited a platform someone else built and need honest triage before a plan. I am direct and I do not sugarcoat what I find.

How I Can Help

Four areas. One standard: outcomes.

🧠

Enterprise AI Strategy and Governance

You've heard the pitch. You've run the pilots. Now what? I help organizations move from AI experimentation to AI operations. That means governance frameworks, model selection, agentic AI deployment, shadow AI risk remediation, build vs. buy decisions, and the organizational changes that make any of it stick. I co-founded an enterprise AI platform company. I know what good governance looks like from the inside out.

Agentic GenAI Shadow AI Risk AI Governance ChatOps / Databricks Model Selection ServiceNow AI
🏛

Site Reliability and Platform Engineering

I ran SRE for a Fortune 500 global retailer at 600 million transactions a month across 3,000 services and 123 locations worldwide. I know what production instability actually costs: in dollars, in team morale, and in organizational trust. Whether you're building an SRE practice from scratch or fixing one that's failing under load, I bring the practitioner's perspective, not the consultant's playbook.

SRE Practice Design Observability SDWAN FinOps Incident Response HADR
👔

Platform Modernization and Automation

Legacy systems don't fail overnight. They fail over years of accumulated workarounds. I have led migrations that reduced 18-day database refresh cycles to 39 minutes, eliminated over 100,000 manual work hours, and rebuilt critical infrastructure at a pace that surprised everyone, including the teams who had been stuck for years. I help you sequence change without putting the business at risk.

Kubernetes / Docker Terraform Ansible / Chef Jenkins CI/CD Netflix OSS Database Virtualization
🔍

Fractional Technology Leadership

Not every organization needs a full-time VP of Engineering or CTO. Many need the thinking, the technical depth, and the executive presence on a part-time basis. A defined number of days per month, fully engaged, fully accountable. I work directly with your team. No hand-offs to junior staff. You get the person you hired, with 20 years of enterprise platform experience behind every conversation.

AWS / Azure Cloud Architecture Team Development Vendor Oversight Technology Roadmap
Technical Depth

The expertise behind the advice.

I do not advise on things I have not built or operated. Here is the stack I have worked with in production at enterprise scale.

🧠 AI and Automation

Agentic GenAI Databricks ChatOps GitHub Copilot ServiceNow AI Zoom AI Slack AI PagerDuty AIOps Python Automation

Cloud and Infrastructure

AWS Azure Alibaba Cloud Consul NGINX Netflix OSS SDWAN Observability FinOps

💾 Database and Storage

Oracle SAP HANA Commvault Database Virtualization Snowflake NetSuite Workday

DevOps and Platform

Kubernetes Docker Terraform Ansible Chef Jenkins PowerShell Python

📊 Observability and SRE

SRE Practice Design Incident Management HADR Service Virtualization Retail Operations Capacity Planning

🎓 Certifications

AWS Cloud Practitioner CSM (Scrum Master) CSPO (Product Owner) MBA/TM BSIT DMIST — ABD
Engagement Options

Choose what fits your situation.

Most Popular

AI Governance Sprint

4-week focused engagement. I assess your current AI landscape: what tools are deployed, sanctioned or not, what governance gaps exist, and what the exposure looks like. You get a prioritized action plan, not a 200-page report.

  • Stakeholder and technical interviews
  • Shadow AI risk inventory
  • Written governance assessment
  • Executive readout and live Q&A
  • Prioritized 90-day action plan
Get Started

Fractional Advisory

Monthly retainer. 2 to 4 days per month. Best for ongoing strategic guidance, platform decision oversight, vendor assessment, or a trusted technology perspective at the leadership table. Minimum 3-month engagement. You get direct access, no hand-offs.

  • Dedicated days per month
  • Async availability between sessions
  • Monthly strategic readout
  • Access to my technical network
  • Minimum 3-month engagement
Inquire Now

Executive Workshop

Half-day or full-day working session with your leadership team. I design and facilitate around your specific challenge: AI readiness, platform decision, or transformation strategy. The deliverable is decisions made, not a summary of what was discussed.

  • Custom agenda and facilitation
  • Pre-session stakeholder prep calls
  • Written output: decisions and next steps
  • Available in-person or virtual
Inquire Now
The Process

How it works.

Simple. Direct. Focused on outcomes, not process for its own sake.

1

Discovery Call

30 minutes. We talk about where you are, where you want to be, and whether I'm the right fit. No pitch, no pressure.

2

Clear Scope

I put together a clear scope of work: what we'll do, how long it takes, what you'll have at the end, and what it costs. No surprises.

3

Direct Engagement

I work directly with you and your team. No hand-offs to junior staff. You get the person you hired, with 20 years of production experience behind every conversation.

4

Real Outcomes

My job is done when you have clarity, a path forward, and the confidence to execute. Not when the report is filed and I've moved on.

On Pricing

A note on fees.

My engagements are priced based on scope, not on the size of your organization. I don't quote hourly rates for advisory work because the value isn't in the hours. It's in the perspective and the result.

A Fortune 500 tech executive who has also run a city and co-founded a startup isn't the same as a vendor solutions architect with a slide deck. I price accordingly, and the ROI track record speaks for itself.

Start With a Free Discovery Call
Work With Me

Tell me what you're working on.

The best way to start is a conversation. Fill out the form and I'll respond personally within 48 hours.

I respond personally within 48 hours.