Vanessa McNab
I build AI-powered workflows that kill busywork and protect your bottom line.
I’m a former Director of Engineering turned founder of Bespoke AI Studio. I help teams turn “we’re drowning in manual work” into “we can’t believe we used to do it that way.”
Former Director of Engineering - leading organizations through secure, high impact automation transformations.
What I Actually Do (In Plain English)
AI Automation for Operations
Turn messy processes into clean, repeatable workflows.
I map how work really moves through your team, then design AI-assisted workflows that cut copy-paste, swivel-chair tasks, and status-chasing. If it’s repetitive, it’s eligible.
Agentic Systems & Tools
Smart agents that work like a sharp, tireless teammate.
From inbox triage to logging into your systems and taking action, I design and build agentic flows that do real work, not just answer questions.
Executive Engineering Leadership
Translate AI, architecture, and delivery into outcomes.
I’ve run teams under pressure, fixed release pipelines, and led large-scale security remediation. I align execs, engineers, and reality.
A Few Things I’m Proud Of
Stabilized deployments after frequent outages
Introduced structured change control, better lower environments, and guardrails that cut random outage risk while keeping teams shipping.
Massive security remediation with a tiny team
Led remediation of thousands of critical security findings with a team of two, in parallel with active product delivery — under the scrutiny of a centralized security org.
From chaos to predictable delivery
Took teams from constant firefighting toward cleaner backlogs, sharper stories, and fewer surprises in production.
My Edge
I’m not coming in to sprinkle buzzwords on your existing chaos. I’ve lived inside the chaos — as Director of Engineering, as the person who gets paged when things go wrong, and as the leader accountable for both product delivery and platform health.
- • I understand how work really gets done inside companies: the unwritten workflows, the Slack DMs, the quiet heroes.
- • I care about guardrails, safety, and long-term maintainability, not just demos that look cool.
- • I’m equally comfortable talking to founders, VPs, and senior engineers — and I don’t bullshit any of them.
- • I’m building Bespoke AI Studio to solve the same problem from another angle: reusable, opinionated tools that make automation actually accessible.
How We’d Work Together
- 1. Deep-dive on your workflows. We map where time actually goes — email threads, handoffs, spreadsheets, niche tools, and the invisible “Bob handles that” work.
- 2. Design the future-state flow. We sketch the ideal flow: who needs to know what, where data lives, and where AI can safely handle decisions or drafts.
- 3. Build, guardrail, and test. I implement the agents, integrations, and automations — with logging, auditability, and clear escape hatches for humans.
- 4. Iterate with real usage. We tune prompts, thresholds, and flows as your team uses them in the wild, until the automation feels boringly reliable.
Workflow of the Week
I like showing real examples of work that went from “ugh, not this again” to “oh wow, it just handles that now.”
Email → Data Extraction → Sheet → Notification
A simple but powerful automation:
- • Watch an inbox for specific types of emails.
- • Extract key data points (name, company, service, deadline, budget).
- • Append to a central Google Sheet or database for tracking.
- • Notify the right person with a clean summary and next best action.
About Vanessa
I’m Vanessa — a technical leader, founder, and relentless over-thinker of how work gets done. I live in Salt Lake City with my family, two dogs, and a small army of cats. I’m an avid runner and boulderer, and I care a lot about building systems — at work and at home — that give people more energy and more time for the things that actually matter.
Let’s Talk About Your Workflows
If you’re serious about cutting manual work and getting real leverage from AI — not just a chatbot in the corner — I’d love to talk.