Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Khurram Tehseen is the founder and principal of Operating Alpha, a data and AI consultancy for private capital and insurance. He has built the data and AI function from zero five times inside regulated firms, including launching the first Global Advanced Analytics group at Manulife, more than 160 people across Asia, Canada and the US, and running data science for nine years at a specialty finance investor, where document automation and a rebuilt data foundation cut underwriting cycle time by 33% at 99.9% decision accuracy and reduced data preparation time by 84%. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) and of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (FCIA), and holds a Master of Management Analytics. He publishes Operating Notes and the annual Private Credit AI Readiness Benchmark. His view: the tool is never the bottleneck, the data foundation under it is.

LP Reporting Support: Clearing a Backlog With Contract Analysts Before the Next Raise

October 28, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Quiet fund conference room at dusk with four stacks of bound reports on a long oak table and one orange chair at the center

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha Clear an LP reporting backlog with a three-seat contract team for one quarter: a senior financial analyst on the packs, a senior accountant tying figures to the books, and a data analyst rebuilding the extracts. The fund team signs everything. That team models at about … Read more

Borrowing Base Reporting: Contract Analysts, Automation, or Both

October 26, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Warehouse loading dock at dusk with stacked pallets of boxes and a lit second-floor office where an analyst works, collateral behind borrowing base reporting

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha Staff certificate review with contract analysts while verification is automated, then shrink the bench as each field goes live. A two-seat bridge, one mid-level financial analyst and one mid-level data analyst, models at about $92,000 for three months at national medians (KORE1 Contract Rate Index … Read more

The 90-Day Deliverable List for a Data Contractor’s Statement of Work

October 24, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Hiring manager reviewing a thin printed statement of work with blank deliverable sections at a desk

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha Write three named deliverables into a data contractor’s scope before day one: a source inventory by week 2, a reconciled pipeline by week 6, and a documented handoff by week 12, each tied to a record and one sign-off owner. Bill it hourly. KORE1 IT … Read more

Month-End Close Contractors: Who to Bring In and What They Leave Behind

October 22, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Quiet glass-walled office corridor at dusk with a row of empty gray chairs and one orange armchair at the far end

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha Three contract seats take days out of a slow close: a data engineer who automates the feeds, a senior accountant who owns reconciliations, and a business systems analyst who documents the new steps. At national medians in the KORE1 Contract Rate Index 2026-Q4 (modeled, October … Read more

Closed Block Migration Staffing: How Many Data Engineers, and for How Long

October 20, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Records room of gray archive boxes on steel shelves with a laptop on a cart under an orange lamp, representing a closed block of in-force policy files

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha A closed block conversion team models at four contract seats, a data analyst, a senior data engineer, a business systems analyst and a senior project manager, costing about $430,700 for six months at national medians. That figure comes from the KORE1 Contract Rate Index 2026-Q4 … Read more

AI Pilot Ownership: A Pilot With No Financial Owner Is a Budget Line

October 16, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Single sheet of paper with an empty signature box on a gray desk beside an orange pen, empty office chair behind

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha AI pilot ownership means one named person signs for the spend, accepts a measured baseline before launch, and answers on a fixed date whether the number moved. A pilot without that person is a recurring cost waiting for its renewal date. Account 6140. That was … Read more

AI Tool Not Working? The Tool You Bought Is a Car With No Road Under It

October 14, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Unpainted wooden toy car on a gray concrete desk just past the end of a short strip of stacked white paper

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha When an AI tool is not working in a credit or insurance operation, the cause is usually the data under it, not the model. Trace the outputs your team corrected, then run the tool on records you have checked by hand before you replace anything. … Read more

AI Implementation Failure: Which Private Credit AI Pilots to Kill, and How to Decide

October 12, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Empty boardroom at dusk with chairs pushed back and dimmed bar shapes on the wall screen after an AI pilot review

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha Kill any AI pilot that has no financial owner, cannot name the credit decision it changes, or has never been scored against a result that already happened. Most AI implementation failure in private credit is a pilot that nobody had the standing to stop. The … Read more

Software Adoption: You Bought the Platform and Nobody Uses It

October 9, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

Empty office workstation with an unused dashboard on the monitor and an orange partition panel behind

By Khurram Tehseen, FSA, Founder and Principal at Operating Alpha Software adoption is the share of a decision that actually runs inside the system you bought, not the number of people who hold a license for it. Adoption stalls when the platform needs inputs the operation cannot produce. Training does not create an input. The … Read more

AI Readiness Is an Operations Question, Not a Technology Purchase

October 6, 2026 by Khurram Tehseen, FSA

A closed grey binder on a walnut boardroom table with a silver stopwatch resting on top and a black fountain pen beside it

AI readiness is whether a firm’s important work survives without the colleague everyone asks where the data is. It is built in records, written rules and named owners, not bought.