As SVP & CIO at Zuora, I lead enterprise-wide AI-powered digital business transformation, advancing Zuora’s Total Monetization vision to deliver scalable growth, operational efficiency, and seamless customer experiences.
My focus is on accelerating the adoption of Agentic AI and automation to enable scalable, intelligent experiences that amplify human potential, eliminate friction, unlock new productivity gains and powering the future of work.
I have built adaptive, connected ecosystems rooted in human-centered design, embedding intelligence and automation directly into the flow of work. At Zuora, this has included driving large-scale transformation initiatives: modernizing enterprise platforms, operationalizing Agentic AI systems, and strengthening enterprise resilience through zero-trust security architectures, delivering the agility, speed, and insight required for enterprises to thrive in the AI era.
Beyond Zuora, I advise SaaS startups on GTM strategy, enterprise readiness, and CxO-level value narratives. As co-founder of an NGO focused on education and skills development for the visually impaired, I believe meaningful transformation must benefit both business and society.
The future belongs to organizations that can learn, adapt, and lead with AI and I’m here to help drive, build, and create lasting value.
Karthik Chakkarapani has been a guest on 1 episode.
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Reinventing SaaS: Zuora's AI Transformation | Karthik Chakkarapani and Shakir Karim (Zuora)
October 9th, 2025 | Season 1 | 31 mins 30 secs
business, digital experience, product management, technology
Today, we’re joined by Shakir Karim (Senior VP of Product) and Karthik Chakkarapani (CIO & Senior VP of Corporate Operations) from Zuora.
In this episode, Shakir and Karthik discuss:
- Why they believe AI is a bigger inflection point than web, mobile, or cloud
- Their internal AI agent workflow that automatically resolves thousands of service requests instantly, freeing teams to focus on strategy
- How they cut a major feature deployment step from 14 days to 10 minutes using Claude Code
- Why prompt-a-thons and hackathons have been vital for driving not just AI adoption but AI literacy