Sixteen years in benefits and HR software, on the side that faces the customer.
About
I started on the carrier side, spent a decade in HR tech leading implementation and customer success teams, and now I do that work part-time for companies that need the function before they can hire someone full time.
The arc
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Unum and Lincoln Financial, 2009–2017
Eight years implementing and enrolling health and benefits plans for employers with 100 to 1,000 employees. Carrier coordination, plan builds, deductions, enrollment logistics across three offices. This is where I learned how benefits actually break, which is what every HR-tech company I've worked for since was trying to fix.
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Namely, 2017–2020
Led a team of five benefits consultants for managed-service clients, and carried 25 to 60 implementations at a time myself. Sat on the Benefit Product League, turning what clients ran into back into product changes.
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Rippling, 2020–2022
Founding member of the Enterprise Implementation team. Built and led a team of eight implementation specialists across HRIS, payroll, benefits, and time. Promoted three of them into leadership inside a year.
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Sequoia Consulting Group, 2022–2023
Led twelve client experience managers responsible for onboarding and ongoing service for about 350 clients. Owned escalations, coached the team through selling and implementing a new product, and built the process that got two teams working as one.
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Sana Benefits, 2023–2025
Director over four teams: implementation, RFPs, admin support, and customer success. Took per-manager implementation capacity from 12 to 40 concurrent projects. Ran the billing systems audit that cut monthly errors from 500+ to under 40. Automated 240 manual signatures a month down to zero. Stood up a customer success admin team and moved 835 accounts through a 90-day transition.
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Baig Innovations, 2025–Present
My own company, and two things inside it. The fractional practice, where I do the work above for companies that aren't ready for the full-time version of me. And Penny, a bladder diary and flare tracker for women, which I designed and built with AI in eight months, never having written code. Yousif Baig, the company's founding engineer, owns security review and release.
What I'm doing now
I work part-time inside growing companies as their fractional head of customer experience: shaping onboarding, implementation, and the operations behind them for the size they're heading toward, automating what shouldn't need a person, and owning a few key accounts. Usually two to four days a week, for a window we agree on up front.
How I build
The method is the same every time: see the problem, work out the fix, build it, test it on real work, fix what breaks, ship it. Then write it down so it runs without me.
Some of what that's produced. Salesforce and Formstack automations that took 240 hand-chased signatures a month down to zero. Real-time dashboards on EDI data for a billing audit that cut errors from 500-plus a month to under 40. A weekly status deck that assembles itself from a Google Apps Script. A time-tracking and invoicing system in a Google Sheet, built in a morning because I needed one by Monday. And once, when the tool I needed didn't exist, Penny: from zero code to the App Store in eight months, built with Claude Code.
None of this is about replacing people with AI. It's about taking the repetitive, error-prone, nobody-wants-to-do-it work off a team's plate so they can spend their hours on what actually needs a human who's been there: building relationships, understanding their customers, knowing the product cold, and the strategic thinking you can't automate. That's what the automation pillar looks like in practice. Small, specific fixes inside the systems you already have, that give your people their time back.
Let's talk
Tell me what's slipping. I'll tell you where I'd start.
I work with two companies at a time, so I start in writing. Send me a few lines about where the customer side of your company is stuck. I read every note and reply within a week, even when it's not a fit.