Who is Karthikeyan VK?
Karthikeyan VK stumbled into his first boardroom filled with uncertainty. Twenty years later, he leads engineering at Ashnik as CTO, having guided the organisation through cloud-native transformation and now the shift to Agentic AI. Along the way, he co-founded TechXConf, authored a book on software architecture, and became one of India's most sought-after speakers on AI and technology leadership.
His talks combine deep technical expertise with the lived experience of making engineering decisions at the CTO level. He does not speak from slides — he speaks from production systems, real failures, and hard-won architectural decisions.
What does Karthikeyan VK speak about?
His most in-demand topics for 2025–2026 centre on Agentic AI — autonomous AI systems that can plan, use tools, and take multi-step actions on behalf of engineering teams. He was one of the first speakers in India to cover Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent-to-Agent (A2A) Protocol, and production-grade multi-agent architectures.
He also speaks on Generative AI strategy for CTOs, Microsoft Azure and cloud-native architecture, Kubernetes and platform engineering, Apache Ray and ML infrastructure, and software architecture for engineers making the transition into leadership roles.
Speaking History
Speaker at PyConHyd 2026, Microsoft AI Tour Mumbai, KCD Kerala
Organised TechXConf 2025 (3,000+ attendees); delivered 8+ workshops on Agentic AI and LLMs
Led first Agentic AI production deployment at Ashnik; spoke at KCD Chennai, Google Cloud Community Days
Speaker at AZConf 2023, KCD Chennai 2023; authored articles on GenAI for CTOs
Founded TechXConf; delivered keynotes at AzConf and Global Azure Chennai
First speaking engagement on Kubernetes and Azure at Chennai user groups
Published Book
Developers Road Ahead
A complete guide for software engineers evolving into architects and CTOs. Covers systems thinking, architectural testing, engineering leadership, and the mindset shifts required to make the leap from individual contributor to technology executive.
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Available for conferences, corporate summits, CTO roundtables, and AI workshops across India and internationally.