Steven Kilner

Business & Process Advisor to AI Services Firms

EXPERTISE

I bring AI services firms two things their technical teams rarely have: deep expertise in how real businesses operate, and decades of turning clients into long-term, expanding relationships.

What that means in practice:

  • Enterprise process & workflow depth — multiple decades inside how companies actually run: workflows, bottlenecks, and the people who have to change how they work for any system to improve.
  • Deep, hands-on process experience — including enterprise process systems, process mining, and BPM.
  • Industry range — distribution, logistics, retail, mortgage, insurance and many niche verticals.
  • A track record of lasting clients — relationships that ran ten, fifteen, and twenty years; I built and ran a 50-person technology services firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most competitive markets on the planet.
  • Genuinely current on AI — hands-on with today’s models and agentic tools, fluent enough to work shoulder-to-shoulder with your engineers.
  • An embedded partner, not a rival — I make your firm look good and your client relationships deeper. I work through you, chargeable to your clients, and don’t plant my own flag.

Business Process & Workflow

For decades I’ve worked on the inside of how companies actually run, the workflows, the handoffs, the bottlenecks, the politics, the external partners and the people who have to change how they work for any new system to matter.

That includes hands-on implementation of enterprise process systems and deep workflow analysis, including process mining and BPM, across industries from distribution, logistics, and retail to mortgage, insurance and many smaller and specialized business niches.

It’s the difference between AI that gets deployed and AI that gets used. I make sure what your team builds is aimed at the right problem, fits how the client really works, and lands where it produces value that leadership can point to.


Building Clients That Last

I did all this process work across many clients from founding and running a technology services firm that grew to roughly 50 people, one of the most respected in the San Francisco Bay Area. I ran every part of it: engineering, project management, client consulting, sales strategy, hiring, operations and financials.

The thing I’m proudest of isn’t the size of the company. It’s how long the clients stayed. Ten years. Fifteen. Twenty. I’m in year fifteen of one relationship right now.

That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by listening to what a client is really trying to do, understanding their business deeply, and delivering results that work, consistently enough that a single project becomes an account that grows for years. For an AI services firm, that’s the difference between chasing the next deal and building a base of clients who stay, expand, and refer.


Current on AI

I’m not a business consultant who just reads about AI or watches a video here or there. I work with today’s tools hands-on, the major models, agentic coding tools, and the steady stream of new capabilities arriving every week on this exponential curve we’re all riding. All this with an eye on what can actually deliver value for businesses.

That means I can hold my own with your engineers, understand what they’re building, and translate it into outcomes a client’s leadership will pay for.


How I Work

I work as a senior advisor embedded alongside your team and your client, not a competing consultancy, and not someone who shows up to plant a flag. Typically your clients pay for me through you. There is typically no cost to you, and if managed correctly, some additional profit to you.

My job is to make your firm look good, deepen your client relationships, and help you turn projects into lasting revenue.

If that’s the gap you’re feeling as you grow, let’s talk.

Drop me a note, let’s talk.