Wagma Rampa — Co-Founder
There are two types of hires that can make or break an enterprise AI company. The executive who sits at the intersection of deep technical expertise and direct customer impact, your VP of Customer Engineering, your Field CTO, your VP of Solutions Engineering. And the forward deployed talent beneath them, the solutions engineers, implementation leads, and field engineers who determine whether your customers actually succeed with your product. Both are extraordinarily hard to hire. Most recruiters don't understand either one well enough to find the right person. They post a job, wait, and wonder why every candidate they interview can either architect a solution or run an executive business review but never both. That combination is rare. It doesn't respond to job postings. And a generalist recruiter who can't explain what a VP of Customer Engineering actually does on a Tuesday will waste six months of your time before admitting they're stuck. I'm Wagma, founder of Ridium Consulting. I've spent 15 years recruiting in tech and made the deliberate choice to focus exclusively on these two areas, Director and above executive search for technical customer facing leaders, and forward deployed solutions talent because that's where I can go deepest and deliver the most value. Here's what working with Ridium looks like in practice. I only go after passive candidates because the best people in this space are not refreshing job boards. They're heads down doing great work somewhere else. I find them, build the relationship, and get them genuinely interested in your opportunity before they've even considered moving. I vet beyond the resume for executive roles I'm going deep on leadership style, how they build teams, how they've handled failure, and whether they'll thrive in your specific stage and culture. For forward deployed roles I'm assessing the rare combination of technical depth and customer facing communication that makes someone genuinely exceptional at the job. And I do reference checks before you ever meet a candidate. You get three to five people I would personally vouch for, not a pile of resumes. Placed an SVP of Forward Deployed Solutions for a SaaS company pivoting to AI-first in under 30 days. The role didn't exist before, they needed someone who could translate complex AI solutions to customers, drive business impact, and still understand the technical architecture underneath it. That combination almost doesn't exist. We found them anyway!! If you have a VP level search or a forward deployed role that's been hard to crack, DM me!
Stackforce AI infers this person is a specialized executive recruiter in the SaaS and AI sectors.
Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Experience: 19 yrs 6 mos
Skills
- Technical Recruiting
- Customer Facing Roles
- Customer Relationship Management
- Executive Search
- Leadership Recruiting
- Recruiting
- Account Management
Career Highlights
- Expert in executive search for tech leaders.
- Specializes in AI and customer-facing roles.
- Proven track record in building high-performing teams.
Work Experience
Costanoa Ventures
Recruitment - Forward Deployed Solutions (1 yr 3 mos)
Ridium Consulting
Founder and Expert Recruiter (9 yrs 4 mos)
Bayside Solutions
Sr Recruiter Consultant (1 yr 4 mos)
Senior Account Manager/Recruiter (6 yrs 9 mos)
TEKsystems
Account Manager/Recruiter (2 yrs 1 mo)
Education
Bachelor's degree at California State University-Sacramento