~cpchander@dev:~$
cpchander@dev:~$ cat /experience.log
~ cat /experience.log | head -100
# 24+ years · 7 roles · founder × 2

Experience

24+ years in IT operations, cloud infrastructure, telecom, security, and venture building. Worked across multiple industries — agri-commodities, retail, BPO, outsourcing, legal tech, staffing.

Older hands-on writing on Asterisk, A2Billing, MySQL replication, and Linux server admin lives at cpchander.blogspot.com (2011–2020).

01

CTO

@LegelpTechcurrent
Oct 2023 – Present · 2 yrs 8 mos
Full-time · Founder · Noida, India

Founded LegelpTech to deliver enterprise-grade technology solutions globally — custom software development, IT consulting, business process automation, DevOps, and digital transformation.

  • Lead the technology vision, engineering culture, and service delivery across all engagements
  • Architect cloud-native solutions and scalable systems for global clients on AWS, Azure, and GCP
  • DevOps & platform engineering — CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI), containerization (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible), monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana)
  • Drive digital transformation programs — process automation, ERP/CRM rollouts, BI dashboards (Power BI), email infrastructure hardening
  • Core services: Custom Software Development, IT Consulting & Infrastructure, DevOps & SRE, Business Process Automation, Digital Transformation
AWSAzureGCPReactNode.jsPythonDockerKubernetesTerraformAnsibleGitHub ActionsPostgreSQLMongoDBPower BIMicrosoft 365
02

Co-Founder

@Zedtreeocurrent
Sep 2023 – Present · 2 yrs 9 mos
Full-time · Co-Founder · Gautam Buddha Nagar, India

Co-founded Zedtreeo with Ashu Mishra — a remote staffing platform connecting US/UK/AU SMBs with vetted offshore engineering, design, and operations talent. The idea was conceived during our years together at Virtual Employee where we saw the managed remote-staffing playbook from the inside. Stepped out in 2023 to build it as an independent platform — owning the technology, matching engine, growth engine, and operational playbook from zero.

partner: Co-founded with Ashu Mishra
  • Co-founded with Ashu Mishra — idea conceived together while still at Virtual Employee, operationalized as an independent venture in 2023
  • Built the platform, matching engine, candidate vetting workflow, and managed-services delivery
  • Drove organic SEO from 0 → 40k/month inside 9 months via programmatic landing pages and topical authority
  • Architected Next.js 16 + Sanity CMS + Vercel stack with programmatic SEO baked in
  • Owning the full GTM, hiring pipeline, and partnership strategy across US, UK, AU markets
Next.jsSanity CMSVercelTailwindPostgresProgrammatic SEO
03

Dy. Manager → Vice President, Information Technology

@Virtual Employee
Feb 2006 – Aug 2023 · 17 yrs 7 mos
Full-time · Noida, India

Joined as Deputy Manager – IT when the company was 60 people. Promoted to VP IT and left when it was 1,500+. Under the leadership of my mentor Narinder Singh Mahil, we built every IT system, telecom platform, compliance program, and operational process that scaled a remote-staffing business from startup to mid-market. This is where I learned IT operations leadership at scale — and where my playbook for everything I build today was forged.

mentor: Narinder Singh Mahil (CEO, mentor through the full 17-year journey)
  • Scaled IT operations through every growth stage from 60 → 1,500+ employees over 17 years
  • Started with open-source stack — SugarCRM for sales, OpenERP for operations, OpenOffice — and incrementally migrated to enterprise: SugarCRM → Odoo (customized) → Microsoft Dynamics CRM; OpenOffice → Microsoft Exchange + Active Directory; Asterisk-based PBX → Twilio + SIP trunks at scale
  • Executed 3 CRM migrations end-to-end across data, workflows, integrations, and adoption (SugarCRM → Odoo → MS Dynamics)
  • Built in-house HRMS from scratch — payroll, recruitment, onboarding, attendance tracking, IT ticketing — operating for 1,500+ employees with zero third-party HRMS spend
  • Architected the company's VoIP platform across multiple generations: started with PAP2 ATA phones for VoIP calling, moved to Asterisk + OpenSIPS for routing and softswitch capabilities, then layered Twilio + SIP trunks for international calling reliability — running call-me-back ('callme4.com') flows, IVR, voicemail, recording, and integration with CRM/HRMS
  • Designed and operated international calling infrastructure — data center colocation, SIP trunk providers, regulatory compliance per country, least-cost routing
  • Led the COVID-19 remote-work transition end-to-end — moved 1,000+ employees from office to home in weeks. Built VPN access, employee monitoring, HRMS-integrated attendance, invoicing, payroll execution, vendor payments, and remote firewall posture for client work
  • Ran the finance department for 6 months during a transition period — payroll execution, client invoicing, data validations, vendor payments — while owning IT in parallel
  • Achieved CMMI Level 3 and ISO 27001 — framed all policies, built the control frameworks, ran internal audits, and cleared external auditors. Owned the ISO 27001 program as the security lead
  • Implemented Microsoft Navision (now Business Central) for ERP and financial management — full lifecycle from RFP through go-live
  • Multi-cloud hosting strategy — migrated on-premise workloads to AWS (EC2, S3, CloudFront, RDS, Route 53, IAM, VPC), GCP (Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, IAM, VPC), and Azure (VMs, Storage, AD, App Service) based on client preference. Owned cloud cost optimization, reserved-instance planning, and FinOps across all three providers
  • Email & messaging — architected the company's entire email stack across multiple generations: open-source mail servers → Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013 on-prem → hybrid Exchange → Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online. Designed mailbox sizing, retention policies, archival, journaling for compliance, and DLP
  • Email deliverability & anti-abuse — owned SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX/PTR records, IP warm-up, and feedback loops with major mailbox providers. Maintained sub-1% bounce rates across transactional and outbound. Ran anti-spam (Postfix + SpamAssassin earlier, then Microsoft EOP / Defender for Office 365)
  • Domain & DNS architecture — ran the company's DNS strategy across multiple domains (primary corporate, sending domains, client-facing apps). Owned zone files, geo-DNS, fail-over routing on Route 53 and Cloudflare
  • Hosting & web infrastructure — owned production hosting for the corporate site, client microsites, internal apps, and CDN strategy (CloudFront, Cloudflare). SSL/TLS certificate lifecycle across hundreds of domains, automated renewal, HSTS, modern cipher suites
  • Security operations — enterprise firewall architecture (Fortinet, SonicWall, Palo Alto, pfSense) with site-to-site VPNs to client environments, segmented VLANs for client work-zones, NAC for endpoint posture
  • Identity & access — Active Directory + ADFS for SSO into Exchange, SharePoint, and partner apps. Role-based access control with least-privilege, quarterly access reviews, conditional access policies after MS365 migration
  • Endpoint & email security — endpoint protection (Symantec, then Microsoft Defender), full-disk encryption (BitLocker), MDM for mobile, email-borne threat protection through EOP and Defender for Office 365
  • ISO 27001 operating discipline — quarterly internal audits, asset register, risk treatment plan, vendor security reviews, incident response runbooks, business continuity drills, and the documentation evidence chain that auditors look for
  • Microsoft Navision (Dynamics NAV → Business Central) — owned the full ERP lifecycle: RFP, vendor selection, fit-gap analysis, data migration from legacy systems, customizations, integrations with CRM and HRMS, finance + accounting modules (GL, AP, AR, fixed assets), inventory and procurement, multi-currency, and reporting. Ran the program through two major upgrades and tens of consultant-engagement cycles. Trained internal finance team to operate it independently
  • Power BI & enterprise BI — designed the company's analytics maturity from ad-hoc Excel exports to Power BI dashboards consumed by the leadership team. Built data models on top of Navision (financial KPIs), Dynamics CRM (sales pipeline), HRMS (utilization, attrition), Asterisk CDR (call volumes, agent productivity). Created executive dashboards for monthly business reviews, finance close, account profitability, and capacity planning. Owned the DAX modeling, gateway, and refresh cadence
  • Linux operations at scale — RHCE-certified production Linux administration across 17 years. Ran CentOS / RHEL / Ubuntu fleets for Asterisk + OpenSIPS, Postfix mail, web servers, internal apps, build infrastructure, and database hosts. Wrote the bash automation that handled provisioning, monitoring, log rotation, backup verification, and the install scripts (some still public at cpchander.blogspot.com). Hardened SSH, sudo, SELinux/AppArmor, iptables/firewalld for the ISO 27001 control set
  • Managed VMware virtualization, data center operations, infrastructure planning, capacity forecasting, DR/backup strategy (Veeam, native cloud snapshots)
  • Designed and deployed employee monitoring system integrated with HRMS for productivity tracking on remote client engagements
  • Designed remote firewall setup and security protocols for the most challenging client environments — financial services, healthcare, US government contractors — including dedicated IP ranges, air-gapped subnets, and segregated mailboxes
  • Owned full IT budget (multi-crore annual), vendor liaison, procurement, licensing, and contract negotiations across Microsoft, AWS, Azure, Fortinet, VMware, Twilio
  • Built real-time reporting & analytics layer that the leadership used for strategic planning across utilization, profitability per account, and pipeline forecasting
AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Route 53, CloudFront, IAM, VPC)Azure (VMs, AD, App Service, Storage)GCPMicrosoft 365 / Exchange OnlineExchange Server 2007/2010/2013Active Directory / ADFSSPF / DKIM / DMARCPostfix / SpamAssassinVMwareCloudflareMicrosoft Dynamics NAV / Business Central (Navision)Power BIMicrosoft Dynamics CRMOdooSugarCRMZohoMS SQL ServerAsteriskOpenSIPSTwilioPAP2SIP trunksRHEL / CentOS / Ubuntu (RHCE)Windows ServerBash / Shell scriptingSite-to-site VPNFortinet / SonicWall / Palo AltoBitLockerVeeamData centerISO 27001CMMI L3
04

Sr. System Administrator

@REI Agro / Sixten
Sep 2007 – Feb 2010 · 2 yrs 6 mos
Full-time · Greater Delhi, India

Ran IT operations and data center infrastructure for REI Agro — one of India's largest rice processing and agri-supply-chain companies — and their retail arm Sixten Retail Stores. Owned data center operations, store-IT, and infrastructure projects.

  • Owned the corporate data center — virtualization, backups, disaster recovery, capacity planning
  • Supported IT operations across Sixten Retail Stores' branches — POS systems, store networking, in-store IT, daily issue resolution
  • Coordinated infrastructure projects: server consolidation, network redesigns, vendor management
  • Led IT & business strategy alignment between corporate IT and store operations
  • Hands-on across Windows Server, Linux infrastructure, networking, and storage
VMwareWindows ServerLinuxPOS systemsNetworkingData centerBackups
05

IT Coordinator

@Subhiksha
Nov 2005 – Sep 2007 · 1 yr 11 mos
Full-time · Rajasthan & Delhi, India

First exposure to multi-location retail IT operations under IT Head Prashant Jain. Covered Westup Retail Store operations across Rajasthan and Delhi — POS rollout, daily store IT support, and SQL-driven sales reporting for management.

mentor: Prashant Jain (IT Head — gave me my first operations-leadership scope)
  • POS installation and rollout across retail store locations in Rajasthan and Delhi
  • Built daily and weekly sales reports directly from SQL databases for store managers and regional leadership
  • Day-to-day IT support for store networking, hardware, peripherals, and POS terminals
  • Coordinated IT-related vendor management and rollout schedules across geographies
  • First role where I owned a program end-to-end — POS lifecycle from procurement to deployment to reporting
MS SQL ServerPOS systemsWindowsNetworkingReporting
06

Technical Consultant

@Progressive Infotech
Mar 2004 – Nov 2005 · 1 yr 9 mos
Full-time · India

Linux infrastructure consulting, firewall hardening, and technical documentation.

  • Linux firewalls — design and deployment
  • Technical writing and documentation for client deliverables
LinuxFirewallsOpen-source stack
07

Customer Support Engineer

@ON TIME
Sep 2002 – Mar 2004 · 1 yr 7 mos
Full-time · India

Frontline IT support and server administration — DHCP, file servers, proxy, AD users.

  • Desktop, printer, and Active Directory user support
  • Administration, configuration & troubleshooting of DHCP, File Server, Proxy Server
Windows ServerDHCPActive DirectoryNetworking
~ cat /certifications.txt
# formal credentials

## Certifications

RHCE
Red Hat Certified Engineer
Linux / Infrastructure
CCENT
Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician
Networking
CEH
Certified Ethical Hacker
Security
MCP
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft
MCSE
Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert
Microsoft
ITIL v3
ITIL v3 Foundation — Service Management
Process & Ops
~ cat /training.txt
# ongoing learning

## Training & Specializations

VMware
Virtualization, vSphere, data center operations
AWS
EC2, S3, RDS, Route 53, IAM, VPC, multi-account architecture
Azure
VMs, AD, Office 365 / Exchange Online, App Service
DevOps
CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, IaC, GitOps
Microsoft Exchange
Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013, hybrid mail, Exchange Online
Microsoft Dynamics NAV / Business Central
Navision ERP — finance, inventory, customizations, multi-year operations
Power BI
Data modeling, DAX, gateways, executive dashboards across CRM, ERP, HRMS, CDR
Linux (RHCE)
RHEL / CentOS / Ubuntu administration, hardening, bash automation
Email deliverability
SPF, DKIM, DMARC, IP warm-up, anti-spam, MX/PTR architecture
Firewalls
Enterprise firewall architecture (Fortinet, SonicWall, Palo Alto) and hardening
Active Directory
AD, ADFS, SSO, RBAC, conditional access, hybrid identity
GTM Strategy
Go-to-market design, pricing, positioning, channel mix, ICP definition
Content Writing
Long-form technical writing on infrastructure, telecom, security, IT ops, remote staffing — for SEO + thought leadership
SEO
Technical SEO, on-page, content strategy, topical authority
GEO
Generative Engine Optimization — getting cited in AI search
AEO
Answer Engine Optimization — featured snippets, PAA, schema
Google Ads
Campaign architecture, conversion optimization
Stock Market Research (4 yrs)
Fundamental + technical analysis, sector study, equity screening, position sizing
Mutual Funds
Selection frameworks, asset-class allocation, SIP & lump-sum strategy
Day Trading & Intraday
Price action, volume profile, intraday strategies on NSE equities and indices
Swing Trading
Multi-day to multi-week setups, technical patterns, risk management
Futures & Options (F&O)
Options strategies, spreads, hedging, Greeks, volatility-based positioning
~ ls /core-expertise/
IT Operations LeadershipGTM Strategy (Go-to-Market)Process ArchitectureAutomationDevOps (CI/CD, IaC, Containers)Multi-cloud (AWS · Azure · GCP)Linux Operations (RHCE, RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu)Email Infrastructure (Exchange, M365, SPF/DKIM/DMARC)Web Hosting & CDN (CloudFront, Cloudflare)VoIP & Telecom (Asterisk, OpenSIPS, Twilio)ERP — Navision / Dynamics NAV / Business CentralBI & Analytics (Power BI, DAX, data modeling)Information Security (ISO 27001, CMMI L3, CEH)Network & Firewalls (Fortinet, Palo Alto)Identity & Access (AD, ADFS, Entra, SSO, MFA)CRM (Dynamics, Odoo, Zoho, HubSpot)B2B SaaS & HRMSRemote Workforce OperationsLead Generation InfrastructureTechnical Content Writing (infrastructure, telecom, security)Remote Staffing Thought LeadershipMarkets & Investing (Stocks · MFs · Intraday · Swing · F&O)AI Agents & AutomationPPC Automation (Google Ads agents)Meta Ads AutomationAutonomous Social Posting Agents
~ echo 'full profile →'