Executive Profile
Vinay Chandrasekaran
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Layerpath
A Tamil Nadu-rooted technology founder and operator, now building AI-powered software from the United States - with deep ties to the state's institutions, ecosystem, and people.
Background
Education & Formation
A foundation built across three continents - from Tamil Nadu's engineering colleges to the UK's graduate schools to the world's leading business institutions.
B.Tech, Information Technology
SRM University, Chennai
M.S, Information Technology (E-Commerce)
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Executive MBA
Quantic School of Business and Technology
Has lived and worked in the United States for the past six years while maintaining family, community, and professional ties to Tamil Nadu.
Career Foundation
Zoho Corporation (2014–2024)
Spent ten years at Zoho Corporation, India's largest privately held global software company, headquartered in Chennai - across the decade when the company scaled from approximately $200 million to $1.5 billion in revenue. Zoho is widely regarded as Tamil Nadu's most significant software export and a globally rare example of a software company built without outside capital.
1
Senior Product Marketing Manager 2014–2017 · Chennai
Led product and growth marketing for Site24x7, Zoho's cloud infrastructure monitoring platform.
2
Director, Platform Partnerships & Marketing 2017–2020 · Chennai
Built and managed GTM partnerships with 100+ ISVs across Zoho's platform ecosystem, including 100+ telephony and UCaaS providers through Zoho PhoneBridge.
3
Senior Director, Platform Marketing & Programs 2020–2024 · Austin, Texas
Led platform marketing across Zoho's partner ecosystem - Strategic Alliances, ISVs, Affiliates, and System Integrators - accountable for revenue growth and product adoption across five business units.
Earlier Work
Entrepreneurial & Strategic Roots
Before Zoho, a track record of founding, building, and advising - spanning digital strategy, product studios, and early internet infrastructure across India, the UK, and beyond.
Frontech Solutions
2003–2008 · Chennai
Founded during undergraduate years. Built clickable prototypes for 150+ clients across India, the US, and the UK. Launched some of India's largest entertainment and technology portals - Tamil Napster, Total Filmi, GO4i.net, Tech Enclave - reaching hundreds of thousands of daily visitors.
iCrossing UK
2008–2010 · Brighton
Senior Digital Marketing Strategist. Worked with Apple, Marriott, and British Airways on integrated digital strategy.
Crayon'd
2010–2014 · Chennai
Founder. Product strategy studio that worked with 100+ early-stage startups across the Americas, Middle East, and APAC.
Current Work
Layerpath
What Layerpath Does
An AI-powered software company that helps teams explain what to do, how things work, and what changed - in a way that stays current and is genuinely understood by the people receiving the information.
Serves software teams in:
  • Customer success
  • Learning and development
  • Product
  • Onboarding
Backing & Validation
Backed by
  • Andreessen Horowitz (a16z Speedrun).
  • Jason Calacanis (LAUNCH)
  • Google Fellow (Venu Vemula)
  • Silicon Valley Angels
Vinay serves as Founder and CEO, leading product, strategy, and go-to-market from the United States.
AI Expertise
Practical AI Experience
AI deployed in administration is judged not by the elegance of the model but by whether the officer using it can trust it, the citizen receiving the outcome can understand it, and the institution running it can defend it.
Through Layerpath, has spent the last few years building, deploying, and operating AI-powered software, in live products used by real customers. The lens this brings to public-sector AI is technical, human-centered, and grounded in the real trade-offs that any serious deployment forces.
Model Selection for Real Deployments
Practical experience choosing and benchmarking AI models for real deployments - balancing capability, cost, and reliability against the specific demands of the audience receiving the output. The same discipline that governs enterprise AI applies, more strictly, in administrative settings.
Safety, Audit & Human-in-the-Loop
Operating AI where failure has real consequences, with active attention to safety controls and institutional oversight. The principle: AI assists decisions, it does not make them. In a government setting, every recommendation needs a human accountable to it and an audit trail behind it.
Designed for the People Receiving the Output
AI deployed in administration is judged not by the elegance of the model but by whether the officer using it can trust it, the citizen receiving the outcome can understand it, and the institution running it can defend it. This is the human-centered discipline that separates working public-sector AI from working enterprise AI.
Public-Sector Translation
Two decades of building software for people who didn't write the spec - customers, partners, citizens - combined with active civic engagement and a sustained Tamil Nadu posture, applied to where AI can realistically work in government today, and where it cannot.
Tamil Nadu Connection
Roots, Relationships & Civic Engagement
Beyond professional ties, a sustained personal commitment to Tamil Nadu's public institutions, digital infrastructure, and civic life.
TNeGA Keynote · 2025
Delivered a keynote in 2025 to TNeGA's senior leadership, managers, and engineering team - approximately 100 attendees - on Silicon Valley-style execution thinking and practical AI adoption in administration. Explored pro bono engagement with TNeGA on citizen content accessibility - a thread open to renewing in support of the new ministry's agenda.
tn2026.v40.in - Election Results Desk
Built and operates an Election Commission of India-traceable Tamil Nadu election results desk that aggregated official ECI data during the 2026 Tamil Nadu state elections. Undertaken as a personal initiative, with no political affiliation.
Ecosystem & Investor Networks
Maintains active working relationships across the Tamil software product ecosystem and across Silicon Valley investor and operator networks, including individuals and institutions with sustained interest in Indian state-level public-sector modernisation.
Purpose of Meeting
A 100-Day Roadmap for AI-Enabled Governance
The purpose of this meeting is to share execution thinking on how Tamil Nadu can structure a credible 100-day roadmap for AI-enabled governance, in coordination with the AI, IT and Digital Services Ministry, Finance, and Planning and Development.

The approach is anchored in the state's existing institutions and infrastructure - TNeGA, ELCOT, e-Sevai, the Tamil Nadu Data Policy, and the Tamil Nadu AI Mission - and shaped around practical execution rather than policy theory.
Get in Touch
Contact
Vinay Chandrasekaran
Founder & CEO, Layerpath
India
+91 86086 09955
United States
+1 (737) 300-9955
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/ivinayc