About Rohit Kumar Maskara

AI Strategist and Systems Architect

A decade inside Meta running operations, strategy, product, and customer experience.

Advising Fortune 500 companies on risk management and process optimization at KPMG.

A career that began on a manufacturing shop floor, running hands-on operations, not preparing slide decks.

Background

I started on a factory floor at Vedanta Aluminium in Jharsuguda, Odisha — managing production shifts, leading a team of 15, and reducing scrap generation by 44% through process re-engineering. From there, nearly three years at KPMG India running operational risk and process improvement engagements for Fortune 500 clients across manufacturing, cement, and natural resources. Specific results: logistics costs down INR 2.4 crore for one client, a procurement cycle shortened by 10 days for another, lead consultant on five consecutive projects at a single client.

After an MBA at ISB, I joined Facebook in Dublin in 2016, then moved to Singapore — spending a decade at Meta across Community Operations, Business Integrity, Sales Partnerships, and Customer Experience Strategy. I left in May 2026 to start Yugam. Understanding where AI will change something in a specific business — and where it won't — requires reading the operations, not just the tool catalogue.

How I think
On reading operations
You read a process by watching where it breaks. Not by reading a diagram of how it should work.
On AI adoption
Find the problem first. Then see whether AI is the right tool for it. The implementations that fail skipped that step.
On what makes transformation fail
A working AI system that the team doesn't use is a failed implementation. The technology is never the hard part.
On the first conversation
The most useful thing I can do in a first meeting is tell you honestly whether you need what I'm selling.
Career
Founder, AI Strategist and Systems Architect
Independent AI transformation advisory. Helping founders and leadership teams assess readiness, build strategy, and enable their people.
Operations, Strategy, Product & Customer Experience
A decade across Community Operations, Business Integrity, Sales Partnerships, and Customer Experience Strategy. Dublin, then Singapore.
Governance, Risk & Compliance
Operational risk and process improvement for Fortune 500 clients across manufacturing, consumer goods, cement, and natural resources.
Operations, Manufacturing Shop Floor
Jharsuguda, Odisha. Led a team of 15. Reduced scrap generation by 44% through process re-engineering and SOP redesign.
Education
MBA, Operations Management & Finance
Indian School of Business (ISB)
2015 – 2016 · Hyderabad, India
Operations strategy and financial modelling. Ranked consistently among Asia's top business schools.
B.Tech, Industrial Engineering
National Institute of Technology (NIT) Jalandhar
2006 – 2010 · Punjab, India
Process design, statistical methods, operations research, and manufacturing systems.
Beyond Yugam
Podcast · 2023 – present
Chai Pe Kharcha

Co-founded an NRI personal finance podcast with three friends. Four people talking honestly about money, tax, investing, and life abroad — based on what we've navigated. Available on YouTube and all podcast platforms.

Writing
Medium

Writing about careers, money, and decisions — the questions worth asking before you need the answers. Focused on the things I wish someone had laid out clearly earlier.

Investing
Angel Investments

Early-stage investing in businesses where the fundamentals are sound, the founder knows the problem from the inside, and the business model is clear. No moonshots.

Certification
Six Sigma Green Belt

Process improvement discipline grounded in statistical thinking. Applied across manufacturing at Vedanta, consulting at KPMG, and operations at Meta. The methodology hasn't changed — only the domain.

If you want to talk, let's talk.

A 30-minute conversation. No pitch deck. Tell me what you're trying to build and where you're stuck — I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.

Book a Call