Data Foundation Sprints
Fixed-scope engagements to stand up the data infrastructure, governance, and MLOps practices your product needs to scale — without committing to an 18-month roadmap.
Best for: teams whose data is outgrowing their tooling
Health-tech data & product consulting · Calgary, AB
From prototype
From prototype
to production.
I'm Tim Cruz — a former clinical-AI CTO and data science leader. I partner with health-tech founders to build the data and product foundations that turn early traction into products that ship, scale, and last.
Seed to Series C · Working with founders across Canada
7+ yrs
Across data science, engineering & product
$2B+
In payments governed by ML risk systems
0 → 10
Enterprise customers won as CTO
16
ML models shipped to production
Credibility
- Published in The Laryngoscope & AJHG
- Data Science Advisor, University of Calgary
- AI Advisory Committee, SAIT
- Former CTO, clinical AI platform
About Tim Cruz
About
I've spent the better part of a decade taking high-stakes AI from research to the real world — and I help health-tech founders do the same.
I started as a data scientist building deep-learning models for point-of-care diagnosis, and co-authored peer-reviewed research — on clinical voice AI in The Laryngoscope, and on 3D facial morphology in The American Journal of Human Genetics. That work pulled me into product and leadership: as CTO of a clinical AI company, I took a regulated platform from zero to ten enterprise customers and achieved HIPAA, SOC 2, PIPEDA, and ISO 27001 compliance along the way.
Most recently I led data science at a fintech, where my team shipped 16 production ML models governing more than $2B in payments and cut fraud and credit-risk losses dramatically. Across all of it, my real job has been the same: translating fluently between data scientists, engineers, regulators, and the C-suite so the right things actually get built.
I founded Cruz Control Consulting to give founders that translation layer on demand. Health-tech is my home turf — clinical software, EMRs, patient platforms, health data — but the foundations I build apply anywhere data and product have to grow up fast. I'm based in Calgary and work with teams across Canada.
Services
Four ways I help you build the foundations
Engagements scoped to where you actually are — from a focused sprint to embedded leadership. Health-tech is my specialty; the work travels to any data- and product-driven company.
Product Practice Maturity
Hands-on advisory to mature how your team discovers, scopes, prioritizes, and ships — so leadership stops being the bottleneck on every feature.
Best for: founder-led teams scaling past ad-hoc process
Fractional Head of Data / Product
Embedded, part-time senior leadership for teams that need the judgment of a Head of Data or Product before they're ready — or able — to hire one full-time.
Best for: companies between their first hire and a full team
Expansion Strategy Support
Data and product guidance for companies entering new markets or provinces — grounded in real experience scaling regulated products across jurisdictions.
Best for: products moving into new regions or regulations
How I work
A diagnostic-first approach
I don't impose a framework from the top down. I learn how your team really works, pilot improvements on live work, and make the gains measurable — so the practices outlast the engagement.
1
Discover & diagnose
I immerse in how requirements move from idea to a developer's screen today — through interviews and workflow audits — then deliver a clear-eyed gap analysis against data and product best practices.
2
Pilot & implement
We trial new practices on real features — PRD and initiative templates, governance, roadmapping — refining each iteration instead of dropping a rigid process on your team overnight.
3
Measure & mature
We define the KPIs that matter — development velocity, rework rate, how often leadership has to step in — so improvement is provable and the team owns the practice without me.
Selected work
A look at a current engagement
● Engagement in progress · 2026
A fast-growing Calgary EMR company
Electronic medical records · thousands of clinicians across hundreds of clinics · expanding into new provinces
Maturing product practices as the company scales
A bootstrapped EMR company was growing faster than its product process. Leadership was being pulled into the details of nearly every feature — scoping, prioritizing, and quality-checking work that a maturing product team should own. They brought me in to close that gap.
- Auditing how features move from idea to deployment, and acting as workflow owner on live features
- Piloting standardized PRD and initiative templates so full scope is captured before build
- Defining KPIs — velocity, rework rate, leadership interventions — to track the health of the lifecycle
Client details anonymized at the engagement's request. Happy to talk specifics in a conversation.
Who I work with
Founders whose ambition has outgrown their process
I do my best work with seed-to-Series C health-tech founders — CEOs, CPOs, and heads of data or product — whose data and product practices haven't kept pace with how fast the company is growing. If your roadmap is outrunning your foundations, that's exactly the gap I close.
I keep engagements flexible. For the right long-term fit, I'm open to partnership and equity-aligned structures — because I'd rather grow alongside the companies I help build than just bill by the hour.
Writing
Notes on building health-tech that ships
Occasional writing on data, product, and the messy gap between a working model and a shipped product.
From prototype to production: why health-tech AI stalls before it ships
A working model is maybe 20% of the journey. Here's what actually stands between a promising prototype and something patients and clinicians can depend on.
Read the essayMore essays on the way. Want them in your inbox?
Get in touch →
Contact
Let's talk about what you're building
Tell me what you're building and where it's getting stuck. I read every message myself, and I'll be straight with you about whether I'm the right fit.