Executive Dinner: Why Isn’t AI Helping SaaS Teams Ship Faster?
A private dinner for PE investors and SaaS leaders
Most SaaS companies have already put AI tools in the hands of their product and engineering teams, and boards expected faster results from the same spend. For most, the roadmap hasn’t moved, and years of product debt are starting to show up as churn. Operators see a release cadence that looks the same as it did two years ago. Investors see AI spend that hasn’t paid off. Same problem, two seats.
The companies seeing real results have something in common: they changed how the team works, not just what it works with.
Join us for an intimate, invitation-only dinner with fellow investors and SaaS executives. Rahul Raina will open with what Celestial has learned putting AI-native development into practice with client teams, including how one of our teams modernizing a mature enterprise database monitoring product runs AI across the full development cycle: estimating work straight from requirements, building test-first, and automating the handoffs between code, review and ticketing.
You’ll leave with more than a conversation: every guest receives an AI SDLC playbook as well as a recorded walkthrough of one use case moving through the full development cycle, from requirements to mockup to working code.
The conversation will cover
How can a board tell real progress from AI activity, starting with how fast a customer request reaches production?
How do you get the whole team working the way your best AI user does, not just the one or two who figured it out on their own?
If AI is writing the code, who are your builders — and what do product managers, designers, and engineers actually do now?
Who should attend
Investors: PE operating partners and investment professionals backing SaaS portfolios
SaaS leadership: CEOs, CTOs, CPOs, and heads of engineering at investor-backed SaaS companies
Agenda
5:30 PM: Arrivals and networking
6:00 PM: A short presentation from our hosts
Then: Dinner and conversation
Getting home
As a courtesy to our guests, we're happy to arrange transportation home for anyone who needs it. Please let a member of our team know, and we'll take care of the rest.
The Hosts
Rahul Raina, Vice President of Business Development, Celestial Systems
Rahul Raina has spent more than 15 years at Celestial Systems helping Fortune 100, mid-market, and growth-stage organizations build and run mission-critical applications in the cloud. He works with leadership teams on moving AI from promising pilots into production, embedded in the applications and workflows they already run, and has helped lead Celestial’s own transformation into an AI-native services company. Previously, he served as President of Antrix Technologies, running a dedicated offshore software development centre through its acquisition by NICE in 2021.
Lakshmi (Lucky) Chandra, Director of Solutions, Celestial Systems
As a Director of Solutions who’s helped organizations navigate the complete AI journey from strategy to production deployment, Lucky brings battle-tested insights from successful enterprise implementations across multiple sectors.
Lucky specializes in bridging the gap between AI potential and AI performance, helping organizations move beyond proof-of-concepts to systems that deliver measurable ROI. His expertise lies in identifying the critical success factors that separate AI projects that thrive from those that fail.
The Venue
We’re hosting the evening in the private mezzanine at one of our favorite Midtown East restaurants. Expect a seated three-course dinner of seasonal American cuisine, with wine and beer, in a private space set for conversation.