Engineer, Fractional CTO, founder
I bring enterprise technology where there is no IT department.
Fifteen years in the trade, eleven of them in international consulting, today founder and CEO of Castaldo Solutions. I design AI, automation and architectures for companies that need a result, not a slide. Fewer buzzwords, more results.
About
I started in 2011 as a freelancer, then spent three years in two co-operatives in Angri, near Salerno, writing automation software for industrial plants. I installed two of them offshore. Then Milan, and eleven years inside the big consulting firms: developer, technical leader, team leader, associate manager, solution architect, project manager, enterprise architect. In that order, one step at a time.
Along the way I led teams of up to twelve people on international programmes, and I saw up close what makes a transformation fail: almost never the technology. It is sponsors who will not decide, a project nobody inside the company can see, a goal that changes every fortnight. I have pulled a good number of struggling CRM programmes back on track, and everything I do today comes from there.
Since November 2024 I run my own firm. Same craft, different customers: companies with no IT department that cannot afford to get it wrong. As a Fractional CTO I sit with the leadership and turn technology into decisions you can measure. My yardstick is one: a satisfied client and at least eighty per cent of the agreed goals delivered. Both, not one.
What I build
These are not business-card titles. They are live systems, with real users and real problems.
Founder, CEO and sole director
My company, since November 2024. AI and automation, digital transformation, vendor-neutral CRM and cybersecurity for Italian mid-market companies, with a proprietary four-phase method. Everything I sell is there, prices included, no need to ask.
www.castaldosolutions.it
Technology governance
Patented phygital foodtech: AI-generated music that changes how taste is perceived, and a lamp that plays it in the dining room. Firmware, models, cloud and hardware in one project. The most complex thing I work on, and the most fun.
soundfood.it
Technology partner
A vertical platform for insolvency practitioners and advisors working on the five over-indebtedness procedures of the Italian Business Crisis Code. Before writing a line of production code we built a fully navigable prototype: validate the idea, then build it.
My own product
A multi-tenant CRM for construction and real estate. Quote and opportunity are the same entity until they become a job site: the logic I sell as consulting, put inside a product. A design partner runs it on real data and tells me where I am wrong.
worksitecrm.itMy own product
A blog that writes itself: automations that read the sources, score what matters, summarise and publish. Forty-four articles generated so far. It proves automation by doing it rather than describing it.
www.claira.itCommunity and open tools
A Discord community and six free self-assessment tools: AI ROI, AI readiness, CRM health, team composition, schools, NIS2 compliance. Use them without talking to a salesperson.
www.castaldosolutions.it/risorseCareer
Fifteen years on the same subject: making technology and the people who use it work together.
since Nov 2024
since Nov 2024
Castaldo Solutions S.r.l. · Milan and Pavia, Italy
AI and CRM strategy for mid-market and large companies across education, finance, manufacturing and retail. Fractional CTO for leaders deciding where the technology budget goes.
2023 - 2024
2023 - 2024
Atlantic Technologies (Engineering Group) · Milan, Italy
Ten people across several group companies, accountable for schedule, cost and financial forecasting. As Enterprise Architect, the IT roadmap of large industrial clients.
2021 - 2023
2021 - 2023
WebResults (Engineering Group) · Assago, Italy
Twelve people, international programmes, Salesforce architecture vision. Plus Career Counselor: growing the analyst community, one person at a time.
2018 - 2021
2018 - 2021
Accenture · Milan, Italy
Five people on CRM and B2B streams with Agile and iterative methods, plus the DevOps transformation of two clients. As Team Leader, digital transformation in automotive and consumer goods.
2016 - 2018
2016 - 2018
Capgemini Italia · Milan, Italy
Eight international Dynamics programmes, online and on-premises, mostly in industrial automation. Owner of the development chain and DevOps.
2015 - 2016
2015 - 2016
Avanade Italy · Milan, Italy
Two international Dynamics projects, custom components and marketing automation. This is where CRM stopped being a tool and became a craft.
2014 - 2015
2014 - 2015
EL.CA. Coop (ATI Group) · Angri, Italy
Two developers to lead, three custom .NET applications between ERP and CRM, and pre and post sales on international projects. My first attempt at building something of my own.
2012 - 2014
2012 - 2014
A.T.I. 2 Coop (ATI Group) · Angri, Italy
Five international automation projects, custom software in .NET and VB6, installations on three plants. Two of them offshore: you go and mount the software you wrote, and if you got it wrong you see it.
2011
2011
Self-employed · Salerno area, Italy
VB.NET and C# applications, websites and CMS for small businesses. You find the first client yourself, and you learn what that means.
You will not find client names from those years here, and that is deliberate: they belong to the employers of the time. If you need the detail to assess working together, I am happy to walk you through it in person.
Credentials
The certifications are personal and verifiable on Trailhead in thirty seconds. The Salesforce partner status belongs to the company instead: two different things, and I keep them apart.
On stage and on air
I talk about AI and how it changes the work of the people using it. If you run an event and want someone who will not sell hot air from the stage, write to me.
Bio, photo and topics for organisers3 and 4 October 2026
DevFest, Modena, Italy
11 June 2026
Salesforce, Milan, Italy
A recurring podcast where innovation is put on trial and has to defend itself.
A webinar series for people who fear AI more than they know it, which is most people.
The Solutions Hub is where I write at length: method, mistakes made, things that worked.
A collaboration with Il Sole 24 Ore on innovation and digital transformation in Italian business.
Where I am heading
That is where I started: the University of Salerno, then two co-operatives in Angri. Then I did what everyone does, and moved to Milan, because that is where the big projects were.
I want to bring some of it back. A team under thirty people that trains young people from the area on AI and gives them real work, close to home, without having to send them north to learn it. This is not charity: it is where I learned, and it works.
Contact
If you have a technology problem you cannot frame, or you are looking for someone who sits on the decision-maker side of the table, write to me. You get me, not a queue.
gaetano@castaldosolutions.it