Most advisors on the move upmarket have worked one side of the problem. Tom Delaporte has worked three — AI product, enterprise consulting, and operator-side transformation — with commercial accountability throughout. Advise is the operator counsel that comes out of that combination.
I built and ran an enterprise customer practice — I have sat where your prospects sit, evaluating AI products, running procurement, and deciding whether a pilot becomes a renewal. Advise brings that buyer-side view to founders who have only seen the deal from the seller’s side.
The counsel comes from someone who built a customer practice from a standing start into an eight-figure ARR business at an enterprise AI company, on consulting foundations from a global firm. The motion I coach is the one I ran — first logos, procurement, pilot-to-renewal — at scale.
The advisory does not produce decks for review. Every conversation ends with specific moves you can make this quarter. Every recommendation is specific, traceable, and owned. The standard is the same standard applied when the work was being done from the inside, with a P&L attached.
Tom Delaporte founded TDcatalyst after building and running transformation programs at the intersection of AI product, enterprise consulting, and operator-side transformation — three domains that rarely meet in a single practitioner.
The typical Advise client is a startup founder moving an AI product upmarket into enterprise accounts — winning the first Fortune 100 logos, surviving procurement, and converting pilots into renewals. The engagement is a retainer or an advisory-board seat.
My career spans three areas that rarely meet: AI product, global change consulting, and HR strategy and operations. Leading an AI transformation means working the seams between them.
I led Talent Transformation, Talent Intelligence Platform, and Agentic Scale programs at an enterprise AI company, where I built a customer practice from a standing start into an eight-figure ARR business across Fortune 100 and public sector clients.
Before that, as an Engagement Manager at a global consulting firm in San Francisco, I led organizational design, change, and M&A integration engagements for global companies. And before consulting, I ran HR and transformation programs on the operator side, across France, Vietnam, the Philippines, China, and India.
The combination is not common. Most advisors have worked one side. I’ve worked three, with commercial accountability throughout. I’m bilingual in French and English with a working knowledge of Spanish, and have lived and worked on most continents. The ability to work well with people across cultures is how impact and outcomes materialize.
TDcatalyst is an independent advisory practice operated by Tom Delaporte in a personal capacity. Not affiliated with any previous employer.