Dean Buvanendran
Solutions Consultant · Sales Engineer

I help buyers make confident technology decisions.

10+ years in enterprise presales across healthcare, public sector, financial services, telecom, and retail. I run discovery that finds the real problem, build demos around it, and increasingly build the tools myself with AI.

See What I've Built See Deal Stories
Open to Senior and Principal SC / SE roles · Canada and US (TN eligible)
Dean Buvanendran
DB
Off the clock

I'm a dad of two in Ajax, which keeps me humble and has made me a very patient negotiator. I'm a builder at heart: give me a free evening and I'll be shipping a new AI tool or sketching the next idea. I believe in showing up in person, asking one more question than feels comfortable, and leaving people better off than I found them.

$12.4MRecurring revenue contributed
$1.3MLargest single deal (TCV)
4Fortune 100 accounts supported
200+Demos delivered
10+Years in presales
About

Discovery is the demo.

I started my career far from software sales. With a criminology degree, my first technical role was training more than 300 law enforcement professionals on investigative case analysis software. That taught me the skill I still lean on most: explaining complex technology to people who have no patience for jargon and real consequences riding on getting it right.

From there I moved through business analysis at TELUS, founded the presales function for a SaaS product at CGI, and spent five years at Upland Software leading solution consulting for IT financial management, where I helped contribute $12.4M in recurring revenue and built a team of Solution Consultants. I have sold to municipal finance teams, hospital executives, health ministry officials, and Fortune 100 IT leaders.

Today I own technical relationships with enterprise retail partners at Flipp, and outside work I build AI-powered tools with the Claude API. Building is how I stay sharp: if I can scope it, wire it up, and ship it myself, I can explain it to any buyer with confidence.

Built by me

Things I have shipped

I build to learn, to prototype for buyers, and to solve real problems. Each of these started as a problem I wanted gone.

Full-stack AI app

Resume Tailor

Problem: Tailoring a resume to each job description by hand took an hour per application.

What I built: A web app that takes a job description and a base resume, then rewrites and scores it against the role using the Anthropic API. Users sign in with Google, and API calls run through serverless functions so keys never touch the browser.

What it proves: I can design an auth flow, a serverless back end, and an LLM prompt pipeline end to end.

ReactNetlify FunctionsAnthropic Claude APIGoogle OAuthPrompt engineering
Walkthrough available on request
AI agent

GigiAI

Problem: Support QA coaching was manual, slow, and inconsistent between reviewers.

What I built: An LLM agent that retrieves the relevant Zendesk knowledge articles (RAG) and generates coaching feedback on support transactions.

ClaudeRAGAgent orchestrationZendesk
Try GigiAI →
Full-stack platform

Brotherhood

Problem: Men's wellness tools were scattered across separate apps for workouts, food, and journaling.

What I built: One platform with workout logging, nutrition tracking, journaling, user auth, and a conversational AI coach named Arnie.

Full-stackConversational AIAuth flowsIntegrations
View Brotherhood →
Presales prototype

Healthcare Network Operations Dashboard

A clickable three-screen operations dashboard built in Figma during a live healthcare SaaS deal, so buyers could react to a concrete workflow instead of a slide.

FigmaRapid prototypingHealthcare
Open prototype →
Presales prototype

CareFlow Hospital Prototype

An interactive patient-flow model that shows how care moves through a hospital, built so non-clinical stakeholders could understand clinical complexity in minutes.

LovableHealthcare UXStakeholder communication
Open prototype →
Technical depth

Integration work in the real world

Most of my deals live or die on how a product connects to what the customer already runs. These are integrations I owned from the vendor side: scoping requirements, mapping the data, and coordinating product and engineering through delivery.

Upland Software

Cimpl to ServiceNow

Primary vendor-side technical contact for ServiceNow integrations at Cisco, the City of Toronto, and Intact. Reviewed API documentation, scoped requirements, and kept delivery on track.

Upland Software

PSA to NetSuite and Sage

Scoped the data flowing between Upland PSA and customer ERP systems, plus Cimpl connections to Jamf and Intune for device lifecycle tracking.

Flipp

Retail partner data and APIs

Technical owner for enterprise retail partners, including two Fortune 100 accounts. Resolve integration issues and enable the data feeds and product APIs behind marketing technology builds.

Build with

Anthropic Claude APIReactNetlify FunctionsGoogle OAuthRAG patternsFigmaLovable

Integrate and scope

REST APIsWebhooksAuth patternsServiceNowNetSuiteSageJamfIntuneFHIR / HL7

Platforms

Salesforce Marketing CloudMicrosoft AzureZendeskTEM / ITFMPSAWorkforce Management
Field experience

Deal stories

Client names are anonymized. Every story is a real deal, including one I lost.

Large US municipality · Upland Software $1.3M TCV won Their data in the demo won the committee

Context

Fragmented telecom and IT spend across departments, with no central visibility.

Action

Led discovery across five stakeholder groups, built an ROI model mapped to their departmental budget lines, and demoed a full environment loaded with their own data.

Result

$1.3M TCV closed. The largest single deal in the government vertical that year.

Generic demos don't move committees. Their data in your demo does.

Large Canadian municipality · Upland Software Revived and closed A deal that sat cold for 10 months

Context

No movement for 10 months. The champion had left and the deal had gone through multiple AE rotations.

Action

Found a new internal contact, re-ran discovery from scratch, rebuilt the business case around current priorities, and owned the commercial conversations through close.

Result

Deal reopened and closed.

Cold deals aren't dead deals. They need a new entry point, not another follow-up email.

Global manufacturing enterprise · Upland Software To contract in 3 weeks Naming the concern nobody said out loud

Context

The technical evaluation was positive, but momentum had stopped and the economic buyer was quiet.

Action

Asked for a direct conversation with the economic buyer and found the real concern was organizational change, not the product. Repositioned around adoption and change management support.

Result

Momentum restored. The deal moved to contract within three weeks of the reframe.

Stalled deals usually have an unspoken concern. Find it and name it before the buyer kills the deal quietly.

Regional health network · Petal Health Ministry and C-suite access Selling outcomes, not software, to clinical leaders

Context

Workforce management and patient redirection software, sold to health ministry officials, hospital executives, and clinical leadership in a PHIPA-regulated environment.

Action

Built executive narratives around patient outcomes and capacity pressure, and partnered with AEs across clinical, IT, and ministry stakeholders.

Result

Advanced multiple opportunities through executive stages and earned credibility in a domain built on trust.

Clinical buyers don't respond to software language. They respond to outcomes. Translate everything.

Large enterprise transportation company Lost to no-decision The deal that changed how I qualify

Context

Looked strong on paper. We invested heavily in discovery, demos, and executive presentations.

Action

Qualified deeply on technical fit, but did not validate budget ownership and internal timeline early enough.

Result

Lost to a no-decision. Budget had never been formally allocated.

Technical validation and business case validation are different conversations. I never skip the budget and ownership question now.

Experience

Career path

Business analysis, then implementation, then presales leadership, with technical depth added at every step.

  1. 2026 to present

    Principal Technical Account Lead · Flipp

    Technical owner for enterprise retail partners, including two Fortune 100 accounts. Integration troubleshooting, data feeds, and product APIs.

  2. 2026

    Senior Sales Engineer · Petal Health

    Presales for workforce management and patient access platforms across regional health networks, hospital systems, and health ministries.

  3. 2021 to 2026

    Solution Consultant, Manager · Upland Software

    Led solution consulting for IT financial management. $12.4M recurring revenue contributed, 4 Fortune 100 accounts supported, hired and developed a team of SCs, MISA Ontario 2024 speaker, co-sell with TELUS and Rogers.

  4. 2020 to 2021

    Solutions Consultant · Vigorate Digital Solutions

    Salesforce Marketing Cloud consulting from discovery to implementation for enterprise retailers including Walmart and Staples.

  5. 2018 to 2020

    Presales Engineer · CGI

    Founding presales hire for a project management SaaS product. Built the demo methodology, discovery framework, and RFP process from zero.

  6. 2016 to 2018

    Technical Product Specialist · Uncharted Software

    Demos and implementations of investigative analysis software for government agencies. Trained 300+ law enforcement professionals.

  7. 2013 to 2016

    Business Analyst · TELUS

    Process mapping, contact center improvement, and IVR redesign.

How I work

Three rules I sell by

Distilled from 10+ years and a lot of scar tissue. I also mentor SCs on these, and my full SC engagement playbook is available on request.

01

Discovery is the demo

By the time I demo, the deal should be half won. The best demos start weeks earlier, in the questions.

02

One demo, many audiences

Same environment, reframed for the CFO, the IT lead, and the end user. The product stays the same. The "so what" changes.

03

Name the unspoken concern

Stalled deals almost always have one. Finding it is the job.

"Your job isn't to write the code. It's to bridge business need to technical reality and make complexity sound human."Dean Buvanendran
Credentials

Education and certifications

Plus speaking: MISA Ontario 2024, Technology Expense Management for municipal IT leaders.

Honours BA, Criminology and JusticeOntario Tech University
Microsoft Azure FundamentalsAZ-900
Marketing Cloud Social SpecialistSalesforce
Certified SAFe 4 AgilistScaled Agile
Six Sigma Green BeltLean Professional, Change Management Specialist
Project Management FundamentalsGlobal Knowledge
Let's talk

Building a presales team or stuck on a complex deal?

I'm open to Senior and Principal SC / SE roles across Canada and the US, and happy to talk shop with anyone in presales.

Email me Connect on LinkedIn