Inside CTOx with Asim Mohammad (Final).m4a
Wed, Nov 12, 2025

0:00 - Asim Mohammad
I think there are many moments, but when I was talking to Lior, I think the light bulb kind of went off when I started realizing that the value that I can bring to the table, I can help multiple people.

0:14 - Donna
Welcome to Inside CTOx Podcast. I'm Donna, Head of Membership and Partnership, and today we're stepping Inside the minds of some of the most innovative tech leaders out there. This isn't just a podcast. It's a place where CTOs journeys come alive, where stories of struggles, breakthroughs and growths unfold. We're here to unpack the experiences of real CTOs navigating through our CTOx accelerator and membership program. So sit back, tune in, let's get into the story. Welcome back to the CTOx podcast, Inside CTOx. Today, I'd like to introduce a absolutely fantastic, one of our favorite CTOx members, Asim Mohammad, a fractional CTOx, data strategist, and the tech whisperer behind next-gen platforms like Lassie. With a background in AI, analytics, and high-growth leadership, Asim helps companies reimagine products, scale fast, and turn data into decisions that move the needle. From fintech to healthcare, he's built, advised, and invested in that bridge innovation with operational excellence. A true technologist with the heart of a mentor. But his impact doesn't stop at the edge of a dashboard. No, no. Awesome is a community builder, an interfaith leader, creating spaces where technology meets ethics, and where the next generation finds its voice. Purpose-driven, strategy-minded, and never afraid to ask the big questions, Awesome brings soul to the C-suite. Welcome.

1:57 - Asim Mohammad
Thank you. Appreciate it.

1:59 - Donna
That's quite an intro. Wow. From FinTech to healthcare. So FinTech to healthcare. Tell me about that. Like that's quite a wide range.

2:11 - Asim Mohammad
Yeah, yeah. You know, I've been privileged to have a pretty amazing, you know, career history. I've in FinTech at Bank of America, where I kind of worked in the consumer bank and at the enterprise level, worked in various functions, mostly around data, data management, building data governance, working on data architecture, and then worked on the back end, meaning the back office as well as the front office, helping tellers and banking centers address their data needs so they can have better analytics for their customers that were, that were seeing them. I went off to Silicon Valley and worked at a few startups out there, you know, in the data space and really that work really hard work with respect to the, the complications and the problems that I was kind of looking for a sort of gnarly hair problems to go after. So I was happy to find a lot of that. And we did a lot of real issues there. And that sort of took me around. And recently, I joined a loyalty company, a B2B company that was focused on, you know, increasing employee engagement by providing cash back benefits, or employee benefits that provided cash back to their, to their employees and That included healthcare component, which I'm part of as well, yeah.

3:51 - Donna
So you were fully in the corporate world. So what was it, was there a moment or what was it that made you think, you know, I need to come and join this CTOx program, like I need a shift, I need a change, like what was that moment?

4:06 - Asim Mohammad
I think there are many moments, like I think, but when I was talking to Lior, I think the light bulb that went off when I started realizing that the value that I can bring to the table, I can help multiple people, multiple organizations. Now, prior to this, I was investing, I was helping, advising organizations, and just helping them grow and giving their founders, you know, the right level of direction, but not necessarily taking money in all cases, or taking an equity position or whatever, and just helping me structure, you know, having Lior there to help me structure the ideas a little bit better and frame it up in a way that enables us, you know, the value offering, you know, that is really what I would consider an equitable value offering. What I mean by that is, you know, we're not necessarily fleecing people by just, you know, coming in, not doing anything and just, you know, giving them a large bill, right? You know, we're tying the value that we bring to the table to the dollars that we're asking for, right? And that's really great, yeah.

5:19 - Donna
Was there anything coming into the program that you were particularly worried about or felt challenged before joining the program?

5:28 - Asim Mohammad
No, you know, I've worked on the sales side of the business before, but I've never branded myself like personally, right? And so branding myself taking a good look in the mirror and building a brand, building a marketing strategy for yourself, going out there, selling your value offering. That was tough. It takes a lot of honesty. It takes a lot of looking yourself in the mirror, what you do well, a lot of maturity to step in and say, what do you not do well? And what do you want to necessarily stay away from and then kind of building that story a little more clearly, right?

6:11 - Donna
Yeah, really, we hear that a lot from the members, like they've never been asked to brand. So tell me, what do you feel about the branding exercise versus a standard corporate interview for a CTOx, like a regular CTOx job?

6:29 - Asim Mohammad
You know, in a regular CTOx job, you know, I think they're kind of mutually exclusive. Schools are very different, very different things, right? So, you know, going into a CTOx position, you're really talking through your experience and you're sort of refactoring your experience to a particular role and a function. In the CTOx X role, when you're kind of coming in as a fractional, it's a bit different. It's a bit more like you're building a brand and And you're saying, look, this is who I am. I'm not trying to cater to people. I'm not trying to cater to roles. This is who I am. This is the value that I bring. And you allow people to come to you instead of you coming to them. And I think that inflection point in my mind, that was a switch that flipped in my head. That I was like, oh, I want to do this. I want to put some, this is who I am. And I want to define that for myself instead of it allowing others to define that for me. I want as a value offering to say, this is what I do well. I can help you in other areas too, but this is what I do well. And then allowing for people to come to me and ask for business.

7:44 - Donna
Does that make sense? It absolutely does. And really that mindset shift is huge. Was there any other mindset shifts that you felt like through the program?

7:55 - Asim Mohammad
I don't.

8:00 - Asim Mohammad
there's a certain amount of confidence that comes with that mindset shift, or I would say courage first. So it starts with the courage to be able to kind of go out there and move away from a paradigm of, you know, just kind of going and interviewing and for a corporate company and to a role. And so moving from a paradigm from that, from a paradigm being a CTOx or going out there and rebranding yourself, saying this is who I am and confidently entering into the public sphere and saying, you know, this is who I am. Please, you know, I'm open for business, right? A gift is a journey that isn't an easy journey. It requires courage. It requires honesty. It requires hard work and dedication to rebrand yourself, refactor, back in, get feedback, refactor again, value proposition, build a marketing strategy, things I didn't know. And along the way, I just really learned a lot along the process. More importantly, what I learned about myself is the depth of my network, the depth of the capabilities that I have. Sometimes you don't really realize what you bring to the table. And sometimes in going through this exercise, you realize, wow, it's actually, you're actually bringing a lot to the table. You actually deserve to command a certain number, right? And it's valuable, right? And the discipline that comes along with that, with respect to the professionalism and the excellence that, at least for me, I kind of aspire to, right?

9:46 - Donna
Yeah, and like network is so, so important. I love that you brought that up. So tell me, how did it feel going out to your network for the first time and being like, Hey, I'm not a fractional CTOx. Tell us about that.

10:01 - Asim Mohammad
I'll tell you how I did it. I looked at my network and I was like, ah, this is a huge number of thousands of people, right? This is going to take some time. So one of the first things I did was, um, uh, with, with some help, I, I built, um, personal, like a certain network persona. So this is, so I graduated from Duke. I'm like, this is my Duke alumni association. I'm going to go, this is that network. I'm going to go after those guys differently than other groups, right? This is a group of CEOs that I know. And I started building these small databases of people that are within my network that I knew, or I could go out to first degree of separation separation, and, and reasonably send emails to and have that respond back, right? Not everybody responded back, but it gave me a strategy, it gave me a framework. So now building those personas out were super critical for me. And then going out, and, and then, you know, individually reaching out to those groups of people, and, and then, you know, talking to them at their level, you know, as a Duke alumni, as a representative of, you know, like, you know, people in my community or through, you know, people that I've worked with in the past, you know, in the data space, outside the data space. That helped cater the conversation, helped cater the messaging and how I was introduced to them.

11:40 - Asim Mohammad
That helped a lot.

11:41 - Donna
Yes. Yeah, that's, That's great. I like the ideas of like having that persona, having that really clear goal in mind, because I feel like sometimes we just sort of go out and just, you know, blurb of, hey, I'm a fractional CTOx. And it's, you know, it's not a conversation. It just feels like a sales pitch to people that you've known for like 20 years. Was there anybody that give you any negative feedback or said, Oh my God, you're crazy. You should go and get a proper job.

12:15 - Asim Mohammad
You know, um, uh, in all honesty, probably my wife, you know, um, probably said, you know, initially she was like, I think you should go and get a proper job. You know, uh, everybody, almost everybody else, uh, looked at it and said, that is interesting. Almost like with that question, almost everybody was like, that is super exciting. And, and interestingly enough, like, people who are unfortunately let go from their corporate roles, whatever, you know, you know, you come across in our communities and their friends and family. You know, I almost always sit down with them and talk to them about, like, maybe you should consider reinventing yourself, because the world is shifting. The world is shifting away from kind of, you know, going after roles. And applying for the days when I used to be young and going after like, um, you know, job boards and things like that and try to apply. I mean, those days are over. Right. And even LinkedIn, you know, LinkedIn jobs bit dated, um, and it's not easy. It's, you know, so like the approach I think is sort of really, you know, my recommendation to the next generation in particular is build a network, build Go out there and actively network. Understand first, second, third degrees of separation. Go after, you know, be very focused. And then go understand your brand.

13:43 - Asim Mohammad
Right.

13:44 - Asim Mohammad
And, you know, start thinking about, you know, this idea of fractional, fractionalization, because I think it's, it's really healthy for you to for you to do that. Right. And then join CUX.

13:59 - Donna
Oh, thanks. Yeah. I mean, networking, like it should be a skill. It should be a skill that we're taught much, much earlier in life. You should be taught it before you need it. And I feel sometimes it's, it's, it's taught at the point where you desperately need it. And that just kind of adds additional stress that you really don't need. So networking for sure is a skill, both online and offline. I think there's, there's two different ways to network and both or both nowadays, you can have a global network, which is just incredible from where we are now.

14:34 - Asim Mohammad
Yeah, absolutely. I actually have a global network, right? And it is absolutely interesting. I tell my daughter, who's a freshman in high school, like, you know, sometimes in addition to your academics, you kind of need to kind of learn the soft skills as well. And the soft skills, how to attentively listen, how to network, how to effectively deal with people and kind of interact with different types of people, understand different personalities and how to engage with that. It's really healthy.

15:04 - Donna
It's so important. And it's going to be more and more, as AI gets more and more involved in our world, having those personal relationships is going to be everything of those who are successful and those aren't. Thinking about relationships, was there a particular relationship within CTOx that kind of resonated with you?

15:24 - Asim Mohammad
There's one particular, like somebody reached out to me and said, Hey, you should talk to this person. And I might've been, who said, talk to this person who really has a virtual, uh, or, um, an offsite, um, executive assistant framework, right. That was built. And I was like, Oh, that is interesting. Cause I was, I'm struggling a hundred things at a time. And I'm like, I need an, a, an executive assistant. And, you know, I wasn't really ready to kind of turn my life over to an AI. You know, you said that, and I've been kind of going down that road a little bit, right? Just finding an offshore executive. So some of the network is helpful. Some of the connections, I've gotten connections, you know, that's turned into very, very deep friendships, you know, through the CTOx community. Additional opportunities and, you know, leads that, you know, that we continue to follow and kind of develop.

16:24 - Donna
Yeah, we really encourage that. You know, just again, part of like building that network, but also like building those relationships within the program so that, you know, you can work together on projects or refer leads or people refer leads to you, or we have a couple of joint proposals going out at the moment. So like, super exciting to, yeah, to see that. Yeah. It's all people. Consider more technologists here, but the people side of it is so important. Also, I wanted to ask, everything that you've learned through the CTOx program, you've been with us for a while now, one of the originals, one of the OGs. What is one, let's say, insight or principle that you learned through CTOx that you didn't have before but now is non-negotiable? You could die on this hill.

17:19 - Asim Mohammad
I mean, there's so many. So I think a non-negotiable that we need to get over as individuals who tend to be utilitarian is there's a pay to play kind of model here. And people need to understand that, right? You've got to overcome sometimes the cost of it. And to enter into these spaces and to get the kind of real true guidance and advice and support structure that you need, you need to kind of, you know, in a, you know, engage at that level, right? And there's investment needs to be done. So that was actually a big thing for me, right? Yeah. And that'll grow over time, right? Like, you know, to get into, to continue to excel and grow and, you know, get to the next level in your career, those investments have to continue. And whereas maybe 30 years ago, No one actually thought about that, right? Those types of investments. I would say, you know, understanding the whole, you know, stepping out of technology for a minute and understand how to do sales, marketing, being able to understand what a pipeline looks like, you know, and building, you know, and managing your own CRM, very big deal. I mean, that's not trivial work. And, you know, the CTOx community makes it easy to do that work, but it's not trivial by any nature. And it's, it's, it requires a lot of, you know, feeding and nurturing and management. It requires investment of time and energy to go out and meet people and talk to people and, you know, build relationships. And, and that, that takes, you know, that's an investment too, right?

19:01 - Donna
To take the time. Investment in time. Yeah.

19:03 - Asim Mohammad
You gotta put in the time. You gotta put in the time, go out and meet people. Go out and drive those conversations and see what, you know, and be, you know, as you get, as you do more and more of it, you get more and more focused, you get a better feel of what the opportunities are, and then, and whether there's an opportunity to deal around the corner or not, but you just gotta stick with it and stay with the program, in a sense.

19:27 - Donna
Yeah, that investment, you know, it's an interesting thing that for all the money that we spend on iPhones and Macs, technology and trips and the, the investment in yourself in, in learning, particularly at this stage, you know, you guys have all had incredible careers, you know, really climb that corporate ladder. Um, but to, to take this moment to fully invest in yourself, to, to get to that next level and not just in money, not just the money in time, equally so in time and money. Uh, it's, it's so important. It's so important to get there. Nobody can do it for you. Nobody can do it for you.

20:07 - Asim Mohammad
I agree. I agree. No one can do it. I think the other thing, you know, to my point earlier about confidence, sometimes you are, at least for me, I was my worst critic, right? And it's really important to mentally turn that around and say, look, you know, don't hurt yourself. In fact, the world doesn't see you that way, right? I know you're you're, you know, and you have to have a lot more empathy for your own self to be able to take yourself out there and put yourself out there and really, with confidence, really drive business, you know?

20:43 - Donna
Yeah, and I and I see a lot of change, you know, I'm hearing all this, you know, a lot of change. So thinking about leadership, like how has your leadership style changed?

20:54 - Asim Mohammad
Oh, it's a My leadership style, it's generally, I think I fine-tuned it over time. So I'm really much more very focused. I tend to know what needs to get done. My leadership is a little bit more macro. I've kind of elevated myself up a little bit in my leadership, which is really important. As technologists, we tend to stay close to the tech. A little bit of, you know, like we need to stay close to the tech, a little bit of that culture that's within us, but like at some level, you know, we have to sort of elevate out of that conversation and build that second tier. So my focus has always been on kind of building teams and growing teams and nurturing teams. I've learned really, one of my biggest lessons in life was learning to protect right? Because if you don't, if you don't protect your team, your then your team feels that they are unprotected, and they tend to leave. And, and when you leave, it hurts the business overall, and then you end up having to build your team from scratch, and it creates a lot more difficulty. And when you learn to protect your team, at the risk of every of all different areas of the business, and then you can And people trust you as a leader. And when they trust you as a leader, they can rely on you to do the right thing to support them. And that is so critical. It's an important lesson to learn. Because then you can grow the organization. You can empower people to make decisions for themselves and trust them, even if they make mistakes here and there. That's OK. But it's OK. It's just part of the game. That's what leadership's about. I always kind of look at myself as how do I put myself out of business, right? By building the next level to take over the roles that I'm doing today, right? And that's not, I don't mean that in terms of, you know, like, you know, not having an income, right? But it's like, I feel confident to be able to say, I'm happy to put myself out of business, because I know that I would have done something successful for the company. And, you know, I can go get income in other places. Yeah.

23:18 - Donna
I love that. I love what you're saying about the trust. And I feel like the trust that you build as the leader then follows through to the clients. Because at the end of the day, if the clients don't trust you, if you haven't built that trust and confidence with the clients, then they're not going to take your advice. They're not going to follow your instructions. If they don't really trust that either you have their best interest at heart that you really know what you're doing. So that trust works both ways.

23:47 - Asim Mohammad
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Totally.

23:51 - Donna
Excellent. So what can we expect in the next 12 months? What does that look like, What's in the journey for you for the next 12 months?

24:02 - Asim Mohammad
You know, the next 12 months is a fantastic journey. I think, you know, I'm looking forward to it. There's an opportunity for a large exit for companies I've been working closely with and growing. So we look forward to that. And then there's also a few companies I've been advising and helping on the periphery that are at the zero to one stage. So I'm looking forward to kind of getting them launched and that tech team sort of rolling on their own. That would be fantastic. And, you know, my hope is that, you know, we kind of, you know, land the product market fit on that we land a revenue play on that. And these these guys can go off to the races and kind of build that business out, which is super fascinating. That's in the healthcare space as well. And if it does, well, knock on wood, you're talking about a billion dollar company, you know, wow.

25:00 - Donna
Yeah, well, you have to keep us informed about that as the Okay. Onto our Final segment. And for anybody that's listened to the podcast before, you'll know, you'll know this more than So our Final segment is I'm going to ask Chat GPT live right now, a thought provoking and you have to answer it on the spot. Are you game? Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. So, I'm going to bring up my chat GPT. All right. Hello, chat GPT. We love a bit of spontaneity, so we thought who better to challenge us than AI? What question would you like to ask a fractional CTOx at this exact moment in time. Okay. You don't know what this question is. Nope. All right. Hold on. It's thinking. Okay. Oh, this is a good one. This is a good one. This is something I've heard of other people ask this question. I'm interested to know what you think. Chat GPT would like to know, is it unethical for a fractional CTOx to work with multiple startups solving overlapping problems? Or is that just the new edge of leverage in a post-scarcity economy of ideas?

26:55 - Asim Mohammad
Oh, that's an interesting question.

26:56 - Donna
That's a good one.

26:59 - Asim Mohammad
Yeah. Look, I would say number one, it is unethical to do it if you're a W-2 and if you're an employee of a company. The likelihood that there's, especially if there's overlapping components, I would say completely unethical. If you're a consultant, it might be slightly nuanced there, maybe less unethical, but I I would, if there's overlapping components, I would do it with a degree of transparency, you know, and generally speaking, you know, going at this eyes wide open and letting people know that it's transparent is probably the best approach just to prevent any potential litigation down the road. I always try to err on the right of being a little bit more conservative when it comes to these types of matters, because, you know, we're living more world of litigation. And, and if that if this kind of overlapping stuff kind of comes across as being, you know, something that is, people feel like there's, there's, you know, there's actually wrong that's being done. Even the allegation of that, that can that can turn into a very expensive mess with lawyers and, and court systems and things like that, that I would try to avoid it at all means.

28:19 - Donna
Yeah, yeah. And I think it goes back to what you were talking about just before about trust. You know, the clients have to be able to trust you.

28:28 - Asim Mohammad
100%. Like it's super important. And your integrity, like, look, this is thank you for bringing that up. It's super important to say, look, your integrity is what matters here. Right. And it's probably better to maintain and and protect your integrity because the moment your integrity is is lost with one potential employer or an employer, then, you know, the word gets out. Right.

28:55 - Donna
And it's a small world all of a sudden, a very, very small world.

28:59 - Asim Mohammad
Right. And, and I've seen that happen with other people. Like, you know, they just, you know, they don't, you know, the word gets around and people sense it. Maybe they may not know specifics, but they send some things there and, and it's better just to be on the up and up on, on everything. Yeah.

29:16 - Donna
Yeah. Good question. That was a good question. Well, thank you so much, Asim. I really, really appreciate that. Thank you for sharing all your stories and your insight with us today. And to our listeners, join us next time. We'll be sharing another CTOx journey. Stories, experiences, and advice you hear today are incredibly valuable, not just for CTOs, but for the broader community and leaders. To our listeners, thanks for tuning in to Insight CTOx. Don't forget to follow us on social media, tag us and share your favorite insights from the episode.

29:54 - Donna
We love hearing your feedback.

29:56 - Donna
Make sure to subscribe and check in again for our next episode, where we'll continue to explore the stories behind the tech leaders shaping the future.

30:04 - Donna
Until next time.