Alexander Ives Webb

VP of AI · Founder, AI Webb Advisory
alex@aiwebb.ai
aiwebb.github.io

Summary

AI engineering leader with 16 years of experience building products and growing engineering teams. Over the past several years I've conceived and shipped the AI product portfolio at CB Insights — including ChatCBI, our flagship AI chat; a suite of generative reports across hiring, earnings, strategy, and company analysis; and an industry-leading MCP integration approved as an official connector by both Anthropic and OpenAI (one of ~40 globally).

Cut AI infrastructure spend by 70% — from a peak of $120k/month down to $37k/month — while expanding the product surface. Comfortable across the full range of leadership — from running a 20+ person engineering organization to operating heads-down, close to the code. Drawn to hard problems, fast growth, and creative applications of emerging tech.

Experience

CB Insights
Dec 2019 — Present
Business intelligence platform for CVC teams and investors
VP of AI
  • Conceived, built, and shipped ChatCBI — the company's flagship AI chat product
  • Built and shipped a portfolio of generative AI features now central to the platform: Scouting Reports (AI executive summaries of any company), Strategy Maps (visual AI analysis of company strategy via investments, acquisitions, and business relationships), Hiring Insights and Earnings Insights (analysis derived from job postings and earnings transcripts), and Page Insights (browser-extension AI fused with CBI data, on any website)
  • Built CB Insights' industry-leading MCP offering — including MCP Apps support for Strategy Maps — and got it approved as an official connector by both Anthropic and OpenAI; one of ~40 such connectors globally
  • Introduced vector databases to the company as foundational AI infrastructure — negotiated the Qdrant partnership and led the company-wide effort to vectorize the data corpus
  • Designed a vendor-agnostic AI proxy layer for centralized cost tracking, one-line model/vendor swap-outs, and zero lock-in across Claude, OpenAI, and Gemini
  • Cut AI infrastructure spend by 70% — from a peak of $120k/month down to $37k/month — while expanding the AI product surface, via model routing, caching strategy, pipeline design, and team-level advisory on appropriate model use
  • Operate in an advisory, oversight, and R&D capacity — partnering across the company to drive effective AI adoption, manage AI spend, and explore emerging capabilities
  • Transitioned the company to a modern authentication scheme and built MFA to drive enterprise sales
AI Webb Advisory
2026 — Present
Founder · Independent AI strategy and engineering advisory
Form.io
Apr 2019 — Dec 2019
Data management and API platform serving clients including the Federal Reserve, United Nations, Deloitte, and UiPath
Director of Technology
  • Owned architecture, release planning, enterprise deployments, OSS community management, and hands-on development across a many-hats startup role
  • Managed a globally distributed team of contract developers and open-source contributors
  • Led development on critical sales enablement systems including enterprise license issuance, validation, and management
EFC Systems
Oct 2013 — Apr 2019
AgTech company with precision agronomy and ERP solutions
Engineering Manager
  • Directed development on a software suite used across 40 million acres of American farmland; team grew 400% during tenure
  • Introduced agile, version control, code patterns, roadmapping, ticketing, and CI/CD where none existed
  • Built engineering capacity through staffing, mentoring, and custom crash courses and coding challenges
  • Led the team through acquisition with 100% retention, growing to two distributed engineering teams across the US
  • Company exited in 2022 via merger with Dairy.com and ever.ag
AgIntegrated
Mar 2010 — Oct 2013
Custom development startup specializing in AgTech SaaS products
Engineering Manager
  • Joined as one of the first engineers; final role led two engineering teams as Engineering Manager
  • Architected, built, or managed development on ~20 products across a varied client base
  • Iterated rapidly on technologies and practices to fuel growth and meet aggressive delivery targets
  • Company exited in 2020 via acquisition by TELUS

Technologies

AI / LLMs
Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (GPT), Google (Gemini), MCP, FastMCP, vector databases (Qdrant)
Languages
Python, Node.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, Go
Frontend
React, Vue, Svelte
Infrastructure
AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, S3, etc.), Nomad, Consul, Vault, Docker
Data
Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch

Education

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
Grove City College · Graduated 2009