ccl.aiThe people leading kairos across capital, the lab, and the studio.
kairos is led by entrepreneurs, executives, and academic research leaders whose careers have spanned category‑defining companies and frontier AI research. They don’t sponsor from a distance — they head the Cognitive Computing Lab, sit on the investment committee at kairos vc, and pair with founders building inside kairos ai.
Seshadri Sridhar
Seshadri is a serial entrepreneur, author, AI strategist, and policy advisor with close to two decades of experience transforming emerging technologies into scalable products, businesses, and innovation ecosystems. An early member of Facebook's Platform team in India, he has held leadership roles across product innovation, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence at Electronic Arts, CognitiveScale, and Cisco. At Electronic Arts, he received the CEO EA Spotlight Award for his contributions to product insights and predictive analytics.
Sridhar was Cofounder at Spotflock, Director of Foresight & Innovation at GFST, and CEO & Trustee of the World Development Council (WDC). He was also Co-founder, Chief Strategist & Chief Innovation Officer at ReNote AI, advancing human-computer interaction and AI-powered productivity. A mentor associated with Stanford Seed Spark, T-Hub, IITs, and BITS Pilani, he advises startups, enterprises, and policymakers on AI adoption, innovation, business growth, and technology-led transformation.
An alumnus of BITS Pilani and the University of Texas at Austin, Sridhar is the author of AI for Everyone, GenAI for Everyone, The Startup Spirit, Cybersecurity for Everyone, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency for Everyone, and AI for Real Estate. His work spans Agentic AI, enterprise AI, product strategy, entrepreneurship, public policy, and digital transformation, bridging technological innovation with real-world business and societal impact.
Dr. Stuart Evans
Board member, educator, author, and longtime expert on dynamic high‑tech ventures. As a Distinguished Service Professor and Director of Carnegie Mellon’s Integrated Innovation Institute on the Silicon Valley campus, Stuart leads coursework for the M.S. in Software Management and the M.S. in Technology Ventures. He also directs the CMU‑Emirates iLab, a partnership between CMU’s III and Emirates Airlines for innovative education and research specialized for the airline industry.
Stuart’s career spans the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem at large. He has conducted research at SRI International and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, consulted with Bain & Company, invested at Sand Hill Venture Group, and served in executive management at Shugart Corporation, a Xerox subsidiary. Prior to Silicon Valley, he taught at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School.
Nick van Terheyden, MD
A digital‑health leader and physician‑turned‑technologist whose career sits at the intersection of medicine and computing. A graduate of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, University of London, Nick practiced as an emergency‑room physician in London and Australia before transitioning into healthcare technology. He has served as Chief Medical Officer at Dell and held executive roles at Nuance and Philips, where he helped pioneer voice‑driven clinical workflows and electronic health records.
Nick hosts the long‑running radio show and podcast Dr Nick: The Incrementalist, has delivered 200+ keynotes on health and technology, and consistently appears in the #DigitalHealth Power 100. At kairos he leads our healthcare thesis — pairing with founders, opening doors at health systems and payers, and ensuring the lab’s clinical agents earn the trust of the people they sit beside.
Rick Rhodes
A seasoned financial‑services operator whose career spans capital markets, alternative investments, and operational restructuring across the middle market. Rick is the Managing Principal of Chamaeleo Capital Management, where he advises companies on finance, operations, turnaround, restructuring, and insolvency — with deep expertise in managed futures, derivatives, and commodities.
At kairos, Rick anchors the financial‑services thesis. His relationships across banks, RIAs, capital‑ markets desks, and alternative‑asset platforms give the studio a direct line into the regulators, counterparties, and operating environments where our explainable‑FinReg agents must earn their seat at the table.
Every founder, fellow, and engineer is paired one‑to‑one.
Founders coming through kairos ai are matched with an executive‑in‑residence and a lab researcher whose work intersects their charter. Cognitive Lab fellows are paired with a senior industry operator. Pairs meet weekly for technical reviews, career conversations, and the sort of “what should I be reading?” guidance that compounds. We track the relationship; we expect it to grow into collaboration — and, often, into the next venture.