CEO and Co-Founder: Kaidera

This position is at Kaidera, a product of Adaptech AI Ltd.

Read this before anything else

Three things decide very quickly whether this is for you.

1. This is an unpaid, equity-only co-founder role. There is no cash salary at the start. What is on offer is meaningful co-founder equity in a company with a built platform, three airports already engaged and a clear shot at becoming the operating system airports run on. We are looking for a passionate AI founder who wants to own a company outcome, not someone drawing a package.
2. You are expected to help fund the runway. We are closing a pre-seed round before Christmas 2026. The incoming CEO gets involved in that round from day one, and is expected to bring cash to the table: a personal angel investment on the same terms as our other angels, investors you have worked with before, or both. The amount is agreed in founder discussions. What is not negotiable is that you contribute to the runway rather than only spend it.
3. Founder and startup experience is a must. You have built or co-founded a company, raised money for it, and sold its product yourself. Ideally you already have investor relationships you can open this quarter.

If any of those is a problem, the rest of this document will not change your mind, and that is fine.

What has changed since we last advertised this role

We have restructured. Adaptech AI Ltd now runs one company with two platforms:

Kaidera, the AI development and adoption platform. It builds governed AI Worker teams, with persistent memory, human approval controls and administration in one place. It is production ready and sells on its own at around US$1,000 to US$5,000 a month.

Total Airport Management, the airport operating system built on Kaidera. One AI layer over the 100-plus systems a major airport already runs: flights and stands, baggage and cargo, ground handling, security, access control, rostering. One shared record, one intelligence, one operation. Sold as modules, on site initially, high ticket.

The CEO runs the combined business. That is a bigger seat than the one we advertised in August, and the reason we are re-opening it.

What we need you to own

We need a co-founder who drives sales, fundraising and company execution. That is the job.

The technology, the product and the AI direction are covered. Amad Malik, Founder and CTO, built both platforms and continues to own the technical direction, product roadmap and AI architecture. He ran an airport operation, was aviation CTO at Atos and at EUROCONTROL, and is a qualified pilot. He intends to stay on the technical side.

The split is deliberate and clean.

Amad Malik, Founder and CTO

• Platform, architecture and engineering
• Product direction and AI strategy
• Technical credibility with airports, partners and investors
• Delivery and technical hiring

CEO and Co-Founder

• Pre-seed close, then the seed round
• Enterprise and partner sales, airports first
• Go-to-market model and commercial strategy
• Company operations, targets, forecasting and commercial hiring

Where we are today

This is not an idea-stage venture.

The platform is built and deployed. Three airports are already engaged: a proof of concept at a major international airport, a Total Airport Management co-development partnership with a founding-partner airport, and an in-principle agreement with a national airport operator. None is a signed revenue contract yet. Converting them is the first commercial job.

A sales lead is already in place. The pipeline beyond the three airports includes a further major hub, an airline technology team and North American aviation companies.

The category context: airport systems are a US$35bn market across 48,000-plus airports, 4,000-plus of them with airline service, and operations still run on disconnected systems. Many airports run core operations on spreadsheets. There is no industry-wide operating system. We intend to be it.

The opportunity

As CEO and Co-Founder you take overall responsibility for Kaidera's commercial growth, fundraising and company execution.

It is a hands-on role. A large part of your time goes on the sales side: airport and partner meetings, progressing the three engaged airports to signed agreements, negotiating commercial terms and closing. Alongside that you lead investor engagement, starting with the pre-seed round we are closing before Christmas, from investor targeting and narrative through diligence to close, and you build the relationships that carry us into the seed round.

You set commercial priorities, run the business day to day and make the company-level calls, working alongside the Founder and CTO.

Your first 90 days

• Pre-seed closed before Christmas 2026, with your own capital and investors in it.
• First airport design partner moved from in-principle to signed.
• Commercial plan, targets and forecast for 2027 agreed with the founder and the board.
• Seed-round investor list warm.

Founder commitment, investment and compensation

• No cash salary initially. Salary is introduced once funding or revenue supports it, with the founder's and the board's agreement.
• Meaningful co-founder equity. Precise equity, vesting and governance are agreed in founder discussions.
• A personal angel investment in the pre-seed round, on the same terms as our other angels, documented separately from the co-founder equity. Size agreed in founder discussions. Investors you bring in count towards the runway you are expected to contribute.
• Full-time operating commitment.

What we are looking for

Essential

• Founder, co-founder or CEO experience in a startup you helped build, including raising capital for it.
• A record of personally selling enterprise or B2B technology: carrying a number and closing deals yourself.
• Investor relationships you can open now, ideally investors you have raised from or worked with before.
• Genuine fluency in AI and enterprise software. You do not need to build it, but you must explain it credibly to an airport COO, a CIO and an investment committee.
• The willingness and capacity to put your own money into the pre-seed round and to help fund the runway.
• Strong financial judgement: budgeting, forecasting, capital allocation.
• Comfort moving between company strategy and hands-on execution.

Advantageous

• Aviation, airports or another regulated-industry background.
• Experience selling to public-sector or infrastructure buyers with long procurement cycles.
• Experience building remote and distributed teams.
• A relevant postgraduate qualification, although a strong operating record matters far more.

The right person

An entrepreneurial commercial founder who wants to build significant company value from a strong existing foundation, and who will back that conviction with their own money and their own network. Equally comfortable in an airport operations centre, a pipeline review, an investor meeting and a hard company-level decision.

It will not suit someone looking for a salaried executive appointment, a passive investor position, or a strategic CEO role that sits above the sales and fundraising work rather than doing it.

Next step

If this fits, send a short note on what you have built, what you have sold, what you have raised, and which investors you would bring to the table. Founder conversations cover equity, governance and investment terms in parallel, and we are moving fast because of the Christmas close.

Contact: [email protected]