About 15Rock
The source beside every finding. An analyst behind every brief.
A Toronto research firm, founded in 2019. We deliver benchmarking, screening and due-diligence research: AI research, checked by expert analysts.
The firm
Who we are.
15Rock began in climate-risk analytics, measuring transition and physical risk for investors and energy companies.
That work showed how hard it is to apply one research method consistently across many companies. We built AI research tools to do that work, and a team of analysts to interpret what they find.
Today we apply the same approach to wider business questions: where to grow next, which opportunities deserve a closer look, which value-creation levers are worth testing, and what could change the plan.
- Founded
- 2019
- Headquarters
- Toronto
- Backed by
- Google, JLL and Malar Group
Engagement examples
140 → 12
~140 organizations ranked into a 12-target priority shortlist.
Pilot → annual
An institutional investor expanded from a pilot to an annual engagement.
Our standards
How we test the answer.
Your methods, criteria and business context determine what we investigate. We agree what a useful answer needs to include before the work starts.
Sources, shown
A brief carries the references behind its findings; where we could not use a source, we say why.
Challenge before delivery
Someone who did not run the work checks the peer set, the arithmetic and the assumptions.
Your decision, your sign-off
We use internal or licensed material only as agreed with you. The findings inform your judgment and are not a certification; the decision and the sign-off stay with your team.
Our team
The people behind 15Rock.
Our backgrounds span strategy consulting, investing, derivatives and risk, software engineering and product. Some colleagues work on Novilo, our RFP-response software for proposal teams.
Leadership
Gautam Bakshi
Founder & CEO
Gautam founded 15Rock in Toronto in 2019 and leads it as CEO, overseeing product and delivery. He spent his earlier career on trading desks at major financial institutions, working in derivatives, risk and financial modelling, including AI-based hedging and market-making strategies. At Manulife he was head of risk and valuation for derivatives technology, then Global Managing Director, Private Markets.
Sayan Navaratnam
Co-founder
Sayan works with 15Rock on product, partnerships and sales strategy. He founded and leads The Malar Group, which builds and backs companies in AI, healthcare, manufacturing and mobility. The group is also an investor in 15Rock.
Priyansh Anand
Co-founder & Head of Engineering
Priyansh leads engineering and helped build the platform that gathers the evidence behind 15Rock's research. Before co-founding the company he held a senior role on Oracle's technical team, did high-level cybersecurity work, and was among Google's top code contributors. He also developed the open-source climate-disclosure reporting tool that 15Rock released when its work centred on climate risk.
Client Advisory
Qinzhi (Q) Wang
Head of Client Delivery & Growth
Q runs client delivery and growth, overseeing how 15Rock's research engagements are scoped, delivered and expanded. He previously headed digital strategy and transformation at Manulife Investment Management, and studied at the Ivey Business School at Western University. He works from Boston.
Jason De Souza
Principal
Jason works with clients on research engagements from scoping through delivery. He comes from commercial M&A consulting and has also spent time in venture capital, private equity and debt markets. As an advisor at Oliver Wyman, he worked with private equity investors on the commercial side of buy- and sell-side deals across multiple verticals. He holds an MBA from Queen's University's Smith School of Business and an accounting and finance degree from the University of Waterloo.
Yazid Ershied
Engagement Manager
Yazid manages client engagements, turning each question into a research plan and checking the output before it goes out. At McKinsey & Company he was the youngest senior associate in the Israel office's history and later an engagement manager, and Forbes Israel named him to its 30 Under 30. He holds law and MBA degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and swam for Israel's national team.
Ray Hertanto
Forward Deployed Engineer
Ray works alongside clients on 15Rock's research, with a focus on the energy sector. He spent several years at McKinsey & Company on profitability turnarounds and spend reduction for large companies, then founded Smooth, a growth consultancy for business-to-business firms. He trained in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and is based in Calgary.
Aanchal Goel
Report QA Analyst
Aanchal reviews 15Rock's research reports for quality before they reach clients. She previously led the Corporate Finance team within Bain & Company's India knowledge organization, working on market intelligence and financial benchmarking, and was a research analyst at S&P Global. A CFA charterholder, she founded Brainworks and co-founded The School of Consulting. She holds an MBA in finance from Jaypee Institute.
Rajan Sharma
Report Execution & Quality
Rajan works on report execution and quality at 15Rock, bringing experience in finance and business transformation. At KPMG, he worked with banking and financial-services clients on transformation investments. At Morgan Stanley, he worked on the financial architecture of a major infrastructure program. He holds an MBA from IIM Lucknow, a master's in management from NEOMA Business School and an engineering degree.
Product
Gowri Prakash
Product & Delivery Manager
Gowri manages product and delivery across 15Rock's research and Novilo, its RFP-response software, and leads the company's compliance work. She started as a software engineer at Electronics For Imaging, where she led development of a colour-reproduction product for print businesses. After an MBA at York University's Schulich School of Business, she moved into product roles at AI health and EV-charging startups.
Shahzad Ali
AI Product Manager, Novilo
Shahzad is the AI product manager building Novilo, 15Rock's RFP-response software. A former startup founder, he moved into growth product management, including at the fleet-management software company Fleetio. He studied engineering at Cochin University of Science and Technology in India.
Lucas Lopes
External Advisor
Lucas advises 15Rock on client workshops, bringing experience in operations, business transformation and the use of AI in business. He spent eight years at McKinsey & Company across public-sector work, operations, transformation, new-business building and AI deployment. He founded MakkinAI in Toronto to help executive teams decide where and how to invest in AI, and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Mercedes Pena
Product Manager
Mercedes brings product management experience to 15Rock, helping take digital products from idea to launch. Her background spans product development and banking, including work at Citibank. She studied at Tecnológico de Monterrey and completed a specialization in strategic management at Copenhagen Business School.
Engineering & Technology
Parham Mohammadi
AI Engineer, R&D
Parham works on the AI systems behind 15Rock's research, with a focus on evaluation, consistency and traceable results. He holds a PhD from York University's Lassonde School of Engineering, where his research focused on power electronics and renewable energy. He continued at York as a postdoctoral research scientist through the NSERC CREATE program, and brings experience building AI tools for decision support.
Muhammad Asif
Software Engineer
Asif is a software engineer on Novilo, 15Rock's RFP-response software. He works on the platform's reliability and cloud infrastructure, and on testing its AI pipelines.
Manavjit Singh Dhindsa
Software Engineer
Manavjit works on the pipeline that produces 15Rock's research reports, with a focus on evaluation and reliability. At the University of Waterloo, where he earned a master's in electrical and computer engineering, he built a deep-learning model that predicts next-day wildfire spread and published it at IEEE COMPSAC. Before Waterloo he was a software engineer at Amdocs.
Bazen Teferra
AI & Research Lead
Bazen works on AI and research at 15Rock, drawing on his background in machine learning and language technologies. He holds a PhD in computer engineering from the University of Toronto and has conducted postdoctoral research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. His research explores how speech, language and large language models can support mental-health screening.
Sales
Todd Duffin
Sales
Todd works with clients on 15Rock's research engagements, bringing an enterprise sales background in telecommunications, unified communications and cloud services. His experience includes a senior enterprise sales role at Connex Telecommunication. Based in the Toronto area, he brings experience in business development and client relationship management.
Nicholas Sachdev
Sales, Novilo
Nick works on sales for Novilo, 15Rock's RFP-response software. He helps prospective customers understand how the product can fit their proposal process, from initial conversations through product demonstrations. He also works with the product team to bring customer feedback into product development.
Start with one question
Bring us the question behind your next decision.
Tell us what you’re investigating and when you need an answer. We’ll discuss the scope, inputs and research that would help.