People

Senior, partner-led. Every engagement, every meeting.

Our team is small by design. The partner who scopes the work is the partner who does the work. Beyond the firm, we draw on a curated network of former CEOs, sector specialists, and senior operators who have lived the questions our clients are asking.

Leadership

Founder & Managing Partner

Ahmad Sheikh

Founder & Managing Partner

Ahmad founded Industrious Foundry in 2026 alongside Industrious Equity Partners. He has spent his career working with management teams in the mission-critical industrial economy.

From 2007 to 2026, Ahmad was at SFW Capital Partners, where he served on the Investment Committee from 2013 and was a Partner of the firm. During his tenure he was involved with twelve platform investments — and a number of add-ons — across industrial technology, life-science tools, and technology-enabled services. He served on the boards of GLG, Spectro Scientific, Essen Biosciences, Filtec, MD Buyline, Micromeritics, ACT!, Caron Scientific, Pion, Granite River Labs, and RDI Technologies.

Prior to SFW, Ahmad was a consultant at L.E.K. Consulting in Chicago and New York. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Franklin & Marshall College and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. He lives in Greenwich, Connecticut with his family.

The operator network

Senior operators we work with on a project-by-project basis.

The Foundry maintains a curated network of former CEOs, commercial leaders, technical heads, and sector specialists who have led the kinds of businesses our clients run. They are introduced into engagements only when they add specific value to a specific question, and only with explicit disclosure to the client. Profiles are shared under NDA upon engagement scoping.

Network · Commercial

Former CCOs and Heads of Sales

Senior commercial leaders from industrial-technology, life-science tools, and TICC services businesses. Operating-seat experience, not advisory.

Network · Technical

Sector technologists & standards experts

Practitioners in photonics, sensing, automation, analytical chemistry, and compliance regimes such as 21 CFR Part 11, ISO 17025, and IATF 16949.

Network · Executive

Former CEOs & board chairs

Operators who have run, scaled, or chaired companies in our sectors of focus. Available for sounding-board engagements and board observation.

Joining the network

If you are a senior operator in the industrial economy, we'd like to meet.

We are always looking for senior operators — former CEOs, commercial heads, technical leaders — who want to contribute to specific engagements on a project basis. The Foundry's network is small and curated. We do not run open expert-call programs, and we do not pay for opinions. Operators are engaged under formal consulting agreements with disclosure to clients.

Introduce yourself