Chris Herron

Chief Technology Officer at aPriori Technologies

Greater Boston, United States

About Chris Herron

Chris Herron is Chief Technology Officer at aPriori Technologies. Location: Greater Boston, United States.

CTO practicing agentic engineering hands-on. Led aPriori's transformation to 100% AI-assisted development, shipping LLM-powered products at scale. Building engineering organizations known for ownership culture, high delivery standards, talent density, and low attrition (100+ engineers). 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗲: • Agentic AI Products – building and operating LLM-powered applications at scale • Agentic Engineering – AI-Native transformation of Engineering delivery to 100% AI-assisted development • Data productization – bringing AI-driven data insights, recommendations, and optimization to market • Growth-stage B2B SaaS – scaling engineering teams, process, and technology 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 & 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲: • Founding team / first employee of a successful VC-backed startup • “CEO minus two” Engineering leader at two $1B+ public companies • CTO at two growth-stage startups (VC & PE-backed) • Built and scaled platforms serving 1B+ users, 150M+ MAUs 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝘀 & 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: 𝘈𝘐-𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 & 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱: • As CTO at aPriori: Led the building of aiSource, the company's first LLM-powered product for sourcing & supplier negotiation, leveraging proprietary data and expert playbooks. • As CTO at Crossbeam: Shipped Crossbeam Copilot with LLM-powered Recommended Plays for Sellers. 𝘡𝘦𝘳𝘰-𝘵𝘰-𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘱 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱: • As VP of Engineering, Evergage: Grew the team from 1 to 20, building a martech platform from zero to PMF. Acquired by Salesforce. 𝘙𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘥 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘐𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘵/𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘦: • As CTO at Next Glass: Led creation of new data subscription product - from team inception to first revenue in 3 months. • As engineering leader for TripAdvisor Restaurants: Launched three B2B SaaS products in 9 months, including fastest acquisition integration in TripAdvisor history (SinglePlatform). • As engineering leader for Personalization at Audible: Launched Audio Insertions MVP in 3 months. 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 & 𝘉𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩: • Transitioned two B2B SaaS businesses to PLG — 90% lower SMB CAC; self-serve from 0 to 20% of ARR in < 1 year. • M&A Leadership: Led technical due diligence and post-merger integration for five acquisitions. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗜 𝗔𝗱𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲: • CTO / VP Engineering at AI-native and frontier-AI companies. • Leading SaaS companies through AI-native transformation: product, platform, and engineering practice • Domains: agentic platforms, applied AI, LLM-based products, vertical AI.

Skills

  • Engineering Leadership
  • Software Engineering
  • Executive Leadership

Additional experience

  • Chief Technology Officer

    Crossbeam

    September 2022 – November 2024

Education

  • B.Sc (Hons), The University of Edinburgh