Bengaluru: SeedlingLabs, an AI-native Product Development as a Service (PDaaS) company focused on enterprise-grade execution, has announced the appointment of Dr Sudhir Kumar Patnaik as the inaugural member of its Advisory Board.
The appointment marks a significant milestone in the company’s early growth phase as it scales its AI-native platform, global talent model, and production delivery capabilities.
The inclusion of Sudhir Kumar Patnaik comes at a time when enterprises are increasingly facing challenges in transitioning artificial intelligence initiatives from prototypes to secure, scalable production systems.
While AI tools have lowered experimentation barriers, operationalizing AI reliably at scale continues to remain complex.
SeedlingLabs was founded to address this execution gap by combining an AI-native delivery platform with deeply experienced engineering talent, designed specifically for real-world production environments.
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Sudhir Kumar Patnaik to Guide Enterprise-Grade AI Execution
Commenting on the appointment, Shanti Kuropati, Founder and CEO of SeedlingLabs, said that AI systems often fail not due to model limitations, but because of scalability and operational challenges.
She noted that Sudhir Kumar Patnaik’s extensive experience in building large-scale, resilient systems aligns closely with SeedlingLabs’ mission of solving production reliability, enterprise security, and operational resilience challenges in AI-native product development.
Sudhir Kumar Patnaik brings over 28 years of global leadership experience across large-scale software engineering, enterprise platforms, global capability centers, and academia.
He currently serves as Professor and Centre Director – Corporate & Industry Relations (CIR) at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Bengaluru, where he works closely with industry leaders to align academic research and engineering talent with real-world enterprise needs.
Prior to his academic role, Sudhir Kumar Patnaik held senior global technology leadership positions at several leading technology-driven organizations.
Most recently, he served as Vice President, Business Technology for international insurance at Prudential Financial Inc., USA, where he led enterprise-scale technology initiatives across APAC and LATAM markets.
Earlier, during his tenure at Intuit, he played a key role in scaling the Intuit India Global Capability Center from 30 engineers to over 1,200, while also leading platform engineering initiatives across India and Israel.
Earlier in his career, he held senior engineering leadership roles at Dassault Systèmes (formerly Accelrys) and Misys Healthcare, contributing to the development and scaling of complex, mission-critical enterprise solutions in the life sciences and healthcare domains.
A strong proponent of software engineering excellence and AI-driven systems, Sudhir Kumar Patnaik holds a PhD in Computer Science with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence.
He has published and presented research in reputed academic and industry forums and has served on advisory boards at leading engineering institutions in India.
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Strategic Priorities Under Sudhir Kumar Patnaik’s Advisory Role
As a member of the Advisory Board, Sudhir Kumar Patnaik will work closely with the SeedlingLabs leadership team across three strategic focus areas.
These include guiding the development of enterprise-grade AI-native platforms that scale securely from MVP to production, shaping AI-native talent and capability-building initiatives such as the company’s ‘Nursery to Naukri’ program, and strengthening industry-academia collaboration to advance applied research and future-ready AI engineering education.
Suribabu Nekkanti, Co-Founder of SeedlingLabs, said that Sudhir Kumar Patnaik’s experience in scaling global capability centers strongly aligns with the company’s vision of democratizing high-end engineering opportunities.
He added that as SeedlingLabs prepares to onboard its first 100 engineers in Gangavathi, Patnaik’s mentorship will be critical in transforming regional talent into enterprise-grade AI practitioners.
Speaking on his association with the company, Sudhir Kumar Patnaik said that SeedlingLabs stands out for its clarity of vision and disciplined approach toward building platforms, processes, and people capable of running AI systems reliably in production environments. He expressed enthusiasm about contributing to the company’s long-term journey.
Reiterating the company’s priorities, Kuropati stated that SeedlingLabs is focused not only on speed, but also on building durable technology, talent, and culture, with Sudhir Kumar Patnaik’s guidance playing a key role in ensuring long-term sustainability.
