Patrick Pando, Value-Led Operator

8%→17%

Operating margin in one year, on a $150m book of business growing 47% year on year. Core42.

$6m→$56m

Revenue while burn fell from $60m to $16m. Baker Hughes / C3 AI.

£2m→£81m

Annual contract value in twelve quarters. AVEVA CONNECT.

Three times the platform changed. Three times I took share and grew the margin.

Client-server to internet. On-premise to SaaS. Now software to AI. Most executives have lived through one of these. I have run a P&L through all three, and the playbook is the same each time: find what the shift makes obsolete, delete it, and sell what the customer now buys.

11999 to 2007

Client-server to internetScala Business Solutions, Epicor

I ran regional operations P&Ls across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and India: sales, services, support and partner channels, in markets where the playbook did not exist. That is where I learned what an operation costs to run.

Web Summit

22008 to 2021

On-premise to SaaSMicrosoft, SAP, Sage, AVEVA

I built the sales-led model at scale: Microsoft Dynamics cloud from zero to roughly EUR100m, SAP's first dedicated SaaS sales organisation in Europe, Sage's shift to SaaS across three million customers, and AVEVA CONNECT from near zero to about £81m ACV and 2,000 customers in twelve quarters. Shell, Eni and Total came first. £2m to £81m ACV in twelve quarters.

AVEVA Ignite

32021 to now

Software to AIBaker Hughes / C3 AI, Core42, cMatter

Three AI businesses, each with a P&L. Industrial applications on C3 AI at Baker Hughes: revenue $6m to $56m while burn fell from $60m to $16m. Core42's enterprise business and Compass platform: margin 8% to 17% in a year, the Central Bank of the UAE, TAQA and Mubadala live. cMatter: an agentic platform priced on the outcome, three of the five largest UAE property owners engaged in two months. Same playbook, third platform.

Patrick Pando speaking on Open Finance, Core42

Core42, Open Finance

Four companies. What was slow, what I did, what changed.

2017 to 2021

AVEVABoard resistance to £81m ACV

Slow: The board feared SaaS would cannibalise the on-premise business.
Did: Proved the opposite. Integrated engineering and design at 100% SaaS reached national and international oil companies that on-premise firms could not serve.
Changed: Shell, Chevron, Eni and Total as first customers. £2m to £81m ACV in 3.5 years.

2024

ApteanOn-premise to SaaS-only in six months

Slow: A legacy ERP portfolio locked to on-premise. Competitors moving to cloud, customers stuck in upgrade cycles.
Did: Moved the whole ERP portfolio to SaaS-only in under six months. Simplified go-to-market, automated deployment.
Changed: ARPU up over 200%. SaaS business up 60% in one year.

2025

Core42Reselling to turnkey infrastructure

Slow: The enterprise team was reselling Microsoft agreements. Six-month cycles, low margin, no differentiation.
Did: Rebuilt the playbook around turnkey sovereign infrastructure. Exited low-margin offerings.
Changed: Six- and seven-figure deals became standard. Business up 47% in one year, margin 8% to 17%, the Central Bank of the UAE won against the hyperscalers.

2026

cMatterBoutique to repeatable product

Slow: Enterprise AI adoption stalls on internal friction. Buildings are the largest asset class in the world and run on the oldest software.
Did: Same playbook, new domain. Portfolio pricing, digital contracting and a route to market for an agentic operations platform.
Changed: Three of the five largest UAE property owners engaged in two months.

Full record →

Delete before you automate the method

2025Core42Exited low-margin offerings, introduced GAAP-aligned revenue recognition, prioritised higher-margin products.Margin 8% → 17%

2022Baker Hughes / C3 AIRebuilt the global sales and forward-deployed engineering organisation around production-ready industrial applications.Revenue $6m → $56m, burn $60m → $16m

2024ApteanConsolidated commercial operations in 13 countries into three regional hubs and one service centre in Poland; led post-acquisition integration from day one.13 → 3, ramp time −75%

Price the outcome, not the access the commercial conversion

2026cMatterDesigned portfolio pricing, digital contracting and the route-to-market architecture for an agentic operations platform.3 of top 5 UAE owners engaged

2025Core42 CompassDesigned consumption pricing and launched a developer platform with 60+ open and closed models.CBUAE, TAQA, Mubadala live

2020AVEVA CONNECTBuilt the industrial cloud business with engineering, services and support under one leader; unified 72 acquired products.£2m → £81m ACV, 2,000 customers

2014SAPBuilt SAP's first dedicated SaaS sales organisation in Europe.Triple-digit cloud growth

AI that acts product and governance

2026cMatterSee, act, control: from AI-generated operational intelligence to verified optimisation to permissioned, sustained automation, with human approval built in.Actuation, live

2025Core42Built the team behind the UAE's sovereign Open Finance platform; won the Central Bank of the UAE against the hyperscalers.$250m+ contract

2022C3 AI StudioSpecified and scoped a low-code industrial platform, then delivered its first customer implementation.BP, ADNOC, ENI, ExxonMobil, Aramco, Petrobras

Operated at

Referenced by

Mandates

If you want to win with AI, talk to me.

The job is the same in each: convert a sales-led software company into a value-led one, and improve the P&L for it. Delete before you transform.

GM, President or COO of a portfolio company whose seat revenue is repricing

I tell you what to delete before we spend on AI, then run the conversion: pricing, commercial motion, operating model, margin.

Operator alongside a founder who built the product

You keep the product. I rebuild the commercial machine around the outcome your customers pay for, and own the number.

A quarter of advisory for a board that needs the delete list first

The pricing conversion path, the operating plan and the order of operations, from someone who has done it with a P&L, not from a slide.

Revenue under pressure. AI changing the game. Customers unsure what to buy. If this is high on your board's agenda, we should talk. Europe, the Gulf, or global.

Manifesto

Exiting the seat trap and building the company that comes after it.

Delete
before
you
automate

Most software companies are not software companies. They are sales organisations with a product attached, built around a unit the customer no longer wants to buy. An agent now does the work a seat used to do. The seat is dead, and with it the sales-led company.

What comes next is the value-led company: outcomes priced, operations engineered, AI as the layer that acts inside the customer's process. It will be run like an industrial business, by operators who know which parts of the old model to delete. Most of it, as it turns out.

Read the manifesto →

Whiteboard: the Actuation Stack. Outcome, agents, systems. LLM premium minus unit cost equals margin per outcome. — The Actuation Stack. Price the top. Engineer the middle. Own the bottom.

On the record.

Third parties, in their words, not mine.

AVEVAProduction in Mexico can grow ten times with cloud. Interview on industrial transformation.Vanguardia Industrial Baker Hughes23 experts predict the most exciting AI trend. Adoption and the barriers to it.Acuvate ScalaSupply chain leaders including Sainsbury's on where AI will have the most impact. Why projects fail and how adoption is won.Retail Tech Innovation Hub ScalaAppointed VP Operations, Western Europe.CNews

One argument a month, under five themes.

Sep 2026The seat is dead. What comes next is priced on outcomes.Manifesto 2026$1 trillion disappeared from software in a day. Here's what everyone missed.The seat trap 2025Simple wins fasterDelete before you automate 2025Win with AI: it is the peopleThe seat trap 2024Touching the elephant: how digital twins connect operationsAI that acts 2024AI isn't a magic wand, it's fertiliserThe seat trap

The record.

Patrick Pando is a general manager and commercial executive who has built and run software businesses through three platform shifts: client-server, cloud and SaaS, and AI. Full P&L across engineering, sales, services, support and customer success.

He built AVEVA's industrial cloud business from near zero to approximately £81m in annual contract value and 2,000 customers in twelve quarters, Microsoft's Dynamics cloud business to roughly EUR100m across EMEA and Latin America, and SAP's first dedicated SaaS sales organisation in Europe. At Baker Hughes he led the global C3 AI applications business from $6m to $56m in revenue while operating burn fell from $60m to $16m. At Core42 he owned the enterprise P&L, raised operating margin from 8% to 17% in a year, designed the Compass platform's consumption pricing and won the Central Bank of the UAE against the hyperscalers. He is Chief Commercial Officer of cMatter, an agentic operational AI platform for commercial real estate. Earlier he ran regional operations for Epicor and Scala across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and India.

EducationMBA, Wake Forest. MA Economics, University of Texas

BaseUAE, Barcelona and London. UK citizen, UAE Golden Visa

LanguagesEnglish, Spanish, Russian

Download CV (PDF) →LinkedIn

Executive

Chief Commercial Officer, cMatterAgentic operational AI for commercial real estate. Abu Dhabi.

Recognition

Twelve-time President's and Chairman's Club representative
Analyst and industry representationGartner, Verdantix, major conferences and customer forums.
Core42 x Nebras summitConceived and hosted for the UAE financial-services ecosystem.

Thirty minutes on how to make the move.

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