Inference Engine
Engineering leadership and strategic clarity for organisations navigating complex technical decisions.
Robert Fanner
Founder · Engineering Leader · LinkedIn
Engineering leadership and strategic clarity for organisations navigating complex technical decisions.
Robert Fanner
Founder · Engineering Leader · LinkedIn
Senior leadership on demand — scaling teams, implementing best practices and steering company-wide strategy.
Practical adoption frameworks, governance structures and hands-on training — from tooling to real-world problem-solving — for AI in the enterprise.
Buy-side and internal evaluations with clear remediation plans (delivered alongside my founding Sollertian partners).
Spotting hidden gaps in engineering maturity and levelling up teams across SDLC, DevOps, AppSec, architecture and tooling.
Not just strategy — when an organisation lacks the internal experience to execute, I step in and roll up my sleeves. From architecture to working code, I have a bias for action and a track record of delivering results fast.
Robert is an engineering leader with 25+ years of experience delivering world-class, award-winning software products across VFX, AI/ML and Computer Vision, underpinned by deep technical expertise in high-performance computing, DevOps and systems engineering. His work spans an extensive range of engagements with renowned international hardware and software companies — leading graphics teams on next-gen AR/VR rendering, delivering automotive 3D infotainment systems and evaluating pre-release CPUs and GPUs. Progressing from senior C++/Python engineer to executive leadership, he has advised CEOs and CTOs on long-term technical strategy, led engineering workstreams through private equity transitions and served on global industry bodies including ASWF and the VFX Reference Platform. He holds an M.Sc. in Engineering (Cum Laude) from the University of Stellenbosch.
Robert helps organisations cut through technical complexity and builds the clarity executives need to make confident decisions — whether navigating M&A, scaling teams or driving AI adoption. Where needed, that means rolling up his sleeves and taking direct ownership of delivery.
Alongside Dr. Liesbeth Botha and Dr. David Weber, Robert is also a founding partner of Sollertian — a specialist advisory practice currently taking shape, with a formal launch to follow — providing technology due diligence, internal engineering reviews and remediation support to investors and leadership teams.