Experience

  1. Senior AI Consultant

    valantic

    • Agentic AI solutions with IBM watsonx orchestrate.

    • Technologies: IBM wx.ai, wx.governance, wx Assistant, watson Discovery, Bob, wx orchestrate, wx Code Assistant for Z, NeuralSeek, Red Hat OpenShift AI, Podman AI, Python, Transformers, RAG, low-code tools, TensorFlow, Pydantic, GitLab

  2. Data Science and AI Consultant

    CROZ

    • Led the design and prototyping of GenAI and LLM-based architectures (RAG, semantic search, task automation) for pre-sales engagements across finance, public sector, and industrial domains.

    • Developed and deployed a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) proof of concept for a Croatian public institution, enabling AI-generated email responses and document retrieval with chatbot integration, reducing manual processing time by 30%.

    • Built and showcased low-code/no-code demos for semantic search and NLP pipelines, accelerating client understanding of AI assistants.

    • Collaborated with IBM Client Engineering and sales teams on pre-sales solutions, GenAI workshop facilitation, and co-design of technical blueprints for AI-powered applications.

    • Advised on AI governance frameworks and legacy code modernization (COBOL, RPG), translating complex technical solutions into strategic narratives for C-level stakeholders.

    • Mentored cross-functional teams on machine learning fundamentals and LLM adoption strategies; delivered AI enablement sessions for business partners, training over 100+ individuals, and securing 10+ collaborations.

    • Led and coordinated international developer teams in pre-sales technical architecture definition and demo development.

    • Active contributor to thought leadership: editor of AI à la Carte, the CROZ newsletter on AI in production, and co-lead of the AWS Tech Alliance initiative for DACH, including student mentorship and speaking engagements.

    • Technologies: IBM wx.ai, wx.governance, wx Assistant, watson Discovery, wx code assistant, wx orchestrate, wx Code Assistant for Z, NeuralSeek, Red Hat OpenShift AI, Podman AI, Python, Transformers, RAG, low-code tools, TensorFlow, Pydantic, GitLab

  3. Data Scientist

    thaltegos (part of Service Plan)
    Developed a churn prediction model with over 80% accuracy and initiated the MLOps implementation in Databricks. Contributed to strategic thought leadership with a position paper on the implications and adoption paths of generative AI for marketing applications. Designed and implemented a geospatial ML prototype for optimizing location decisions for an e-mobility platform.

Education

  1. PhD in Management

    Bayes Business School, City University London (UK)
    Three essays on the economics and management of IP departments.
    Read Thesis (Open Access)

  2. PhD in Strategy and Business Administration

    University of Verona (IT)
    The Commercialization of Intangible Assets: Theoretical and Empirical Inquiry on Patents.

  3. MRes Management

    Bayes Business School, City University London (UK)
    The Antecedents of IP Commercialization.

  4. MS Economics and Business

    University of Verona (IT)

    The application of the Endogenous Growth Theory on the strategic management of intangible assets: a theoretical inquiry.

    Major in Economics (110/110 cum laude, Academic Award).

  5. BS Economics

    University of Verona (IT)

    Game Theory and Public Goods: How to Sustain Cooperation in Individual Choices.

    Major in Economics (105/110)

Skills & Hobbies
Technical Skills
Technical and Programming

Applied Statistics, Econometrics, NLP, RAG, GenAI, Hugging Face, Transformers, Python, R, STATA, Jupyter

Tools and Platforms

Git, IBM watsonx, Red Hat OpenShift AI, Podman AI, Ollama, Jira, Databricks

Consulting

Technical pre-sales, Workshop Design, Agile Collaboration, Public Speaking

Hobbies
Hiking in the Alps with my family
Cycling with my gravel bike
Learning how to code better
Awards
Fully Funded PhD Bursary (2011-2015).
Bayes Business School, City University of London (UK) ∙ September 2011
Fully Funded PhD Bursary (2009-2013)
University of Verona (IT) ∙ September 2009
Outstanding Academic Achievements
Academy of Management ∙ June 2019
Best reviewer award.
Languages
100%
Italian
100%
English
80%
German