Scaling Up in an AI World - Practical Tools & Strategies for Growth-Stage CEOs

An exclusive breakfast event, co-hosted with BGF, for scaling CEOs navigating the opportunities and challenges of building a business in an AI-powered world.

Join a curated group of growth-stage SaaS founders and CEOs for an interactive, expert-led session focused on how to scale effectively in an era of rapid technological change.

Designed for business leaders building towards £20m+ ARR, this interactive workshop will explore how AI is reshaping product, engineering and go-to-market strategies, and what it really takes to lead through this shift with clarity and confidence.

What to Expect:

• Scaling with AI: Explore how leading SaaS businesses are embedding AI into their workflows, from product management and prototyping to customer experience and commercial strategy. Go beyond basic automation by learning how early adopters are experimenting with agentic AI.
• Product-market fit & enterprise readiness: How can product teams use AI to prototype faster, validate more quickly, and move beyond documentation-heavy processes to win enterprise clients?
• Navigating the noise: With so many AI tools and frameworks, how do CEOs decide where to focus? This session helps separate what's important from what's irrelevant including how to evaluate whether (and when) it makes sense to invest in agentic AI capabilities.
• AI-augmented workflows: Dive into how engineering practices are evolving with AI: what’s working, what’s not, and how to lead these changes with existing teams. We'll explore the shift from assistive to agent-led tools, where AI systems don’t just suggest next steps, they take them.
• Scaling a technology business: Scaling a business is always challenging, this session will discuss scaling technical and commercial teams, and global market (especially US) expansion.
• Peer-led learning & actionable insights: This session balances shared challenges with expert input. Attendees will leave with actionable insights to apply.

Session lead:

Sumir Karayi was the founder of 1E, he led the company to a partial exit to the Carlyle Group in 2021 and a full exit to TeamViewer in 2024. With 1E, Sumir learnt about technical innovation, product design and development, US enterprise sales and, scaling a software business from £500 to $720m organically. He focuses on helping tech entrepreneurs in the UK and is particularly interested in Artificial Intelligence. Sumir has served as a judge for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year programme over the last 3 years. Committed to sharing knowledge and education, Sumir leads Boardwave’s AI committee, he also sponsors research initiatives with Warwick and Delhi universities, aiming to enable young women in India to access higher education and secure well-paid jobs.

Together, we’ll explore how growth-stage CEOs are adapting to the realities of scaling in an AI-driven world, from evolving product strategies to navigating new engineering workflows.

Expect honest reflections, practical use cases, and plenty of space for questions, conversation and peer connection.