Sarah Merion · Strategy, Operations, AI Architect

Hi, I'm Sarah.

I lead product innovation at Pacific Community Ventures, which acquired my firm Radiant Data in 2025. Over the past year I've launched three new AI-native products from 0 to 1, stood up the company's AI-native operating infrastructure, and cultivated a sponsorship partnership with a publicly traded bank from a cold introduction I made 18 months ago.

Across 15 years in tech, consulting, and mission-driven companies, I've built operating models, integrated tech stacks, designed go-to-market plays, and turned executive vision into systems teams actually run on. I co-founded Radiant Data in 2023. Before that, I founded a workplace wellness platform that was acquired by SimplaFYI in 2017, and ran Impact Aligned, advising C-suite teams on strategy, product, and operations.

I work at the intersection of strategy and execution. I shape the thesis, design the business model that makes it work, build prototypes to validate it, and architect the operating system that runs it. AI-native, customer-obsessed, and unwilling to design strategy that doesn't translate into something real.

Should this be built?

In the age of AI, anything can be built. The constraint isn't possibility anymore. It's discernment.

The answer to "can it" is always yes. The harder, more useful question is whether we're solving a real problem, or just adding to the noise and digital waste of an industry that can ship anything in two days.

I'm a problem-obsessor first. Most builders get stuck on whether the thing functions and whether it looks good. Of course it will look good and function well. That's not the issue.

That's why I swim upstream. I prioritize market dynamics, go-to-market truth, and the customer pain that's actually worth solving. And I prioritize stakeholder alignment: actually lining the right people up, engaging them, getting them ready so that the moment we ship, demand and momentum are already there. "Build it and they will come" isn't a hope. It's something you engineer upstream.

Get the problem right, and the solution is the easy part. That's my edge: the upstream thinking that makes anything I build downstream actually worth building.

My expertise.

Full-time or fractional.

New revenue stream design

Conceive and architect new business lines inside existing organizations, from market hypothesis through launch to live revenue. For companies whose growth depends on net-new revenue, not just optimizing what's already there.

Operating model design

Design operating systems from scratch. For founders, acquired companies, and teams scaling past their current structure.

Go-to-market strategy

Positioning, launch sequencing, early customer acquisition. For new products and new lines of business.

Strategic partnership cultivation

Cold introduction to closed deal, including long-cycle enterprise and institutional sponsorships. For organizations building strategic partnerships from scratch.

AI-assisted strategic planning

Bring AI into how leadership sets strategy, runs reviews, and makes decisions. For exec teams that want to plan in days, not quarters.

Cross-functional alignment

Translate strategy into operating reality across engineering, GTM, finance, and program teams. For execs who need their teams pulling the same direction.

Post-acquisition integration

Lead the operating-model and value-creation work that determines whether an acquisition pays off. For acquired teams and acquirers alike.

Original research and analysis

Translate market signals into executive-ready narratives that decision-makers will actually read.

AI-native CRM design

Stand up Attio-based operational layers, integrated across functions and running on AI workflows. For organizations replacing legacy CRMs that no one actually uses.

AI prototyping for buy-in

Concept to working prototype in 2–7 days using Base44, Lovable, Cursor. Visible artifacts that move strategic conversations from abstract to tangible, accelerating executive buy-in and engineering teams alike.

Workflow automation architecture

Build Zapier and n8n systems that route data, trigger actions, and remove manual handoffs across teams. For teams losing hours to coordination friction.

AI and data skills mentorship

Coach junior operators on tech fluency, AI tooling, and data analytics. For teams investing in their own bench.

Open to full-time roles, fractional engagements, and advisory work.

Roles I'm exploring

Director of Strategic Initiatives · VP of Operations · AI Architect. Or anything where strategy, AI, new revenue creation, and execution come together.

Industries

Tech-forward, mission-aligned, fintech, healthcare. Slightly agnostic. What matters more is the work, the team, and whether we're building something that's actually going to run.

Location

Boston, remote, or anywhere with a good airport.

Get in touch →

My selected work

Six things I've built recently.

Each case is short on purpose. The deep version of any of these is a conversation I'd love to have.

01 / Operating infrastructure

An AI-native operating system inside a national investment firm.

The challenge

A national lending and investment firm with big plans and a tech stack that wasn't keeping up. When Pacific Community Ventures acquired my firm Radiant Data in 2025, I was retained to design an AI-native operating system the team could actually run on.

What I built

A CRM platform around Attio, integrated tech stacks across functions, AI-assisted planning frameworks, native data integrations that move the right data to the right people, and a library of workflow automations the team uses daily.

The hard part

This wasn't a tech refresh. It was an operating-system rewrite mid-flight, for a team that was also redesigning what it wanted to be. Every build-vs-buy call balanced scalability, reliability, extensibility, and speed.

What it unlocked

New revenue streams that didn't exist before the acquisition, real-time visibility for executive decision-making, and a team that uses AI as a default instead of a novelty.

02 / Founding to exit

Building and selling Radiant Data.

The thesis

I co-founded Radiant Data in 2023 with a bet: lenders and social-impact funders were drowning in data they couldn't act on, and the field needed strategic and analytical infrastructure that didn't yet exist.

What I built

A consultancy from zero. Brand, positioning, operating model, delivery muscle, and a reputation across the field as the people who could move from messy first principles to shipped systems faster than anyone else.

The acquisition

Pacific Community Ventures acquired Radiant Data in 2025 and retained me to lead product innovation post-acquisition. The acquisition was specifically a bet on the operational infrastructure we'd built and the expertise we'd developed in the field.

What I learned

Selling a company you've poured yourself into is a strange mix of pride and grief. The lesson: build the operating system first, sell the company second. Operators acquire infrastructure they can run.

03 / 0 → 1 product

An AI credit risk product, prototype to production.

The context

A national lender wanted to give underwriters better tools and let them responsibly take on more risk. The market hypothesis was clear. The product didn't exist yet.

What I did

I conceived the product, built a working machine-learning credit risk model in two days using AI-native prototyping tools, validated the hypothesis with target customers, made the build-vs-buy and prototype-vs-scale calls, and partnered with engineering on production architecture. The two-day prototype compressed the production build from quarters to weeks.

What it became

A live AI product now analyzing more than $15M in lending capital across the field, reducing underwriter effort and unlocking responsible risk-taking at the sector level.

What I love about this one

Seeing-is-believing got the product across the finish line. Decks don't unlock executive buy-in. A working prototype does.

04 / Platform + partnership

A peer benchmarking platform for a specialized field.

The problem

A specialized field lacked a shared place where peers could benchmark against each other responsibly. Individual organizations were either over-cautious (afraid of risks they couldn't compare against) or operating blind.

What I built

A peer benchmarking platform from scratch — designed the product, the business model, the sponsorship model, and the go-to-market.

The partnership

I cultivated a sponsorship relationship with a publicly traded financial institution from a cold introduction I made 18 months ago. As of this writing, the sponsorship is near close. That kind of deal doesn't happen in a quarter. It happens because someone is willing to play the long game.

The lesson

The hardest part of platform work isn't the platform. It's the trust-building that lets people actually use it.

05 / Program design

A national AI capacity-building program.

The need

An entire field was being asked to incorporate AI into how it worked, with no infrastructure for learning how. Most leaders didn't know what to build, what to buy, or which tools to teach their teams.

What I designed

A sector-wide AI capacity-building program delivered in partnership with national associations to their members. A cohort model. A practical curriculum. A built-in network of peers. Real outcomes, not theory.

The partnerships

I secured backing from two national banks as anchor funders ($700K+ committed) and aligned cross-organizational leadership on scope, success metrics, and the pathway from learning to adoption.

The lesson

The fastest way to move an industry on AI is through trusted peer networks, not from the top down.

06 / Research + narrative

America Blooms Where We Water Her.

The question

Where in the US are entrepreneurs ready and willing to build, but starved for the capital that would let them?

What I did

I built a methodology that crossed Bureau of Labor Statistics data on business formation with Raj Chetty's research on economic connectedness, applying FIPS-level mapping to surface US counties where high entrepreneurship met thin access to capital.

Where it landed

Leadership at the US Department of Commerce, US Small Business Administration, World Bank, and The Atlantic Council.

What I learned

The hardest part of impact research isn't the analysis. It's making the analysis legible enough that people in power can actually act on it. A briefing isn't useful if it's not read.

Welcome!

I'm a strategist who designs and architects products, operating systems, and AI infrastructure that open new revenue streams and turn ambitious visions into operational realities.

Hi, I'm Sarah.

Should this be built?

My expertise.

Open to full-time roles, fractional engagements, and advisory work.

Six things I've built recently.

An AI-native operating system inside a national investment firm.

Building and selling Radiant Data.

An AI credit risk product, prototype to production.

A peer benchmarking platform for a specialized field.

A national AI capacity-building program.

America Blooms Where We Water Her.

The best way to reach me is email.