Ninad Narkhede

Ninad Narkhede serves as Chief Technology Officer at Apoddo, where he leads the company’s mission to reimagine intelligent systems through AI-first, human-centric engineering.

With over two decades of experience as a distinguished technology executive, Ninad leads the development of trustworthy AI infrastructure for high-impact, complex industries—including fintech, healthcare, real estate, and the broader technology sector. He helps organizations modernize platforms, accelerate product velocity, and operate with the speed and discipline today's markets demand. He partners with founders, boards, and executive teams to align technology strategy with long-term business advantage.

Previously at Visa, Ninad served as Head of Cloud Engineering, where he modernized internal platforms and infrastructure—empowering teams and systems that support billions of transactions globally through secure, scalable, and resilient engineering. He was instrumental in enterprise-wide adoption of generative AI, delivering measurable improvements in productivity, security, and operational agility. Starting with Visa’s first acquisition in 2009, Ninad led the technology integration for every major M&A, aligning infrastructure, systems, and teams to deliver scalable, secure, and compliant outcomes. He also led Visa’s zero trust transformation, making modern authentication and passwordless infrastructure core pillars of the company’s security posture. With a focus on identity governance, Ninad embedded trust and accountability into the architecture of innovation. His technical leadership extended across risk management, threat modeling, threat defense, and regulatory compliance—integrating frameworks such as PCI DSS, FFIEC, and SOX into Visa’s cloud-native environment and advancing both audit readiness and platform agility.

Prior to taking on the Head of Cloud Engineering role, Ninad served as Chief Engineer, where he led foundational efforts to define Visa’s cloud strategy, engineering standards, and platform architecture—laying the groundwork for future transformation.

A 5x Ironman triathlete, Ninad brings a mindset of endurance, structure, and focused execution to technology and business—believing the rigor required to train for Ironman is foundational to building resilient, high-performing teams and companies.

Ninad holds a Master of Science in Information Technology and Management from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science from West Virginia University.