Pavel Khodalev

CTO & Head of AI Lab at First Line Software

San Francisco Bay Area, United States

About Pavel Khodalev

Pavel Khodalev is CTO & Head of AI Lab at First Line Software. Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States.

I build frameworks for AI deployment in the real world — not in demos. As CTO of First Line Software, I act as Field CTO for our clients navigating AI transformation. The work I'm most proud of: RACE Programming — a production-validated Agentic SDLC framework delivering ~3× software scope at ~⅓ cost across 10+ enterprise clients. raceprogramming.com I authored the AI-First Manifesto (AIFirstManifesto.ai) — an industry framework for human-AI collaboration, modeled after the Agile Manifesto. The premise: AI amplifies human judgment, but only when there's an explicit framework for knowing when to trust it and when to override it. Speaker: CAIO Summit Boston (Dec 2025), Sync Big 2025 (Nov), AI4 Las Vegas (Aug 2025). I write on LinkedIn about delegation literacy, organizational design, and the real barriers to AI adoption — not the tooling. Previously: CIO at Sberbank CIB (led world's largest Agile transformation in banking, 11,500 FTE), Director at Deutsche Bank (Risk/Equity IT), SVP/CRO at First Line Software (pre-sales team of 30 SEs/SAs). 20+ years in enterprise tech. Half inside Fortune 500. Half as the consultant.

Skills

  • Quantitative Management
  • IT Governance
  • Leadership

Additional experience

  • GenAI CTO & Senior Vice President, Global Business

    First Line Software

    September 2024 – May 2025

Education

  • , National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute)