Fifteen years running commercial teams across Asia-Pacific. Now completing my first book, working on other creative pursuits and building my digital brain (Cortex).
I'm Aaron Rigby. I spent a career scaling ad-tech and media businesses across Asia and the Pacific.
I'm currently writing Unfinished Business, a short book about what commercial leaders actually need in the AI era.
I run UMBRA, a poetry channel built on fluid-dynamic visuals. And I build Cortex, a personal knowledge graph that thinks about the world the way I do — the subject of the book, and the thing I now help others build and scale to incredible heights.
Based in Bangkok. Available for the right conversation.
A running list of what I'm building, writing, and publishing. Some are finished, most aren't.
A playbook and a guide about what it actually takes to lead commercial teams in the AI era. Not a manifesto, not a textbook — a memoir that happens to teach you something and help you build your own. Ships to Kindle and Gumroad mid-2026.
A poetry channel built on fluid-dynamic visuals — each poem pairs with a generative piece that reads as artwork. Original writing in a contemplative register. New pieces shipping weekly.
A science-fiction novel about identity, memory, and what happens when synthetic people start refusing the jobs they were built for. Due mid-2026.
A personal knowledge graph for operators. Every conversation, every meeting, every half-formed idea gets captured, linked, and surfaced when it's useful. Not a note-taking app — a second brain that remembers better than I do. The subject of the book. The thing I now help others build.
There's more — an algorithmic trading experiment, generative educational tools built for my kids. Not everything makes it onto a public list. Ask if you're curious.
A playbook and a guide about what it actually takes to lead commercial teams in the AI era.
Every senior operator has the same problem: the things you need to remember, decide on, and follow up on outnumber the hours in the week. Most people treat this as a willpower problem. It isn't. It's an architecture problem.
This book is the method I used to get out of the way of my own work — a knowledge system built on three primitives and one simple loop. It's what I wish someone had handed me fifteen years ago.
If you've ever lost a commitment, forgotten a context, or felt like your calendar was running you instead of the other way around — this is for you.
Every reader who buys Unfinished Business gets free access to the actual Cortex starter prompts — the ones I use every day. Share your receipt, get the download link. No newsletter spam.
Buy on Amazon Claim your promptsWhy smart operators still drown — and why productivity advice keeps failing the people it's written for.
Three primitives (Entities, Threads, Commitments) and one loop (Capture → Link → Surface). The whole thing fits on a napkin.
How to actually run it. What breaks, what works, and what the next twelve months look like for anyone who commits.
On the architecture of knowledge in the AI era, what commercial leadership is becoming, and how to stop drowning in your own work.
I speak at conferences, leadership offsites, company all-hands, and founder gatherings across Asia-Pacific. The through-line is always the same: the real work of leadership in the AI era is architectural, not motivational. You don't need another framework. You need a system.
Talks are built around live, practical examples from my own work — what works, what breaks, and what to do about it on Monday morning.
Why the inbox-and-calendar model of leadership has broken, and what replaces it. A live walkthrough of Cortex — the system I built for myself — and the three primitives that make it work.
What changes when every senior person on your team has an AI teammate that never sleeps. The organisational, emotional, and commercial implications — drawn from fifteen years running APAC teams.
A hands-on session where participants leave with the architecture sketched for their own second brain. Three primitives, one loop, concrete first build. For groups of 8–30.
A candid conversation format — what happens when a senior operator gets the call, and how to make the next chapter strategic rather than reactive. For leadership audiences navigating their own transitions.
Keynote or breakout. Remote or in-person, with a strong preference for in-person in APAC. Decks are custom-built for the audience — no off-the-shelf reruns.
Ninety-minute intensive session for founding teams, C-suites, or senior leadership groups. Interactive, tuned to the group's actual operating context.
Internal talks for teams navigating their own AI transition. Focus is on what the commercial function actually has to change, not abstractions.
Tell me about the audience, the moment, and what you want them to leave with. If the fit is right, we'll build the talk together.
Email meI help executives and teams stand up their own Cortex — the knowledge system described in the book. Not generic AI consulting. This one specific thing, done properly.
Most AI projects fail for the same reason: they start from the tool. The right place to start is the knowledge architecture — the system that decides what gets captured, what gets connected, and what gets surfaced back to the human at the right moment.
I've spent the last eighteen months building that system for myself. It runs every day. It's the engine behind the book. And it turns out other operators want the same thing — without spending the year I spent getting it right.
A short engagement: I come in, look at how your knowledge flows today, and give you an honest architecture assessment. You leave with a map of what you have, what's missing, and what to build first.
A longer engagement: I work with you to stand up the actual Cortex — capture pipelines, entity model, surfacing layer — tuned to how your team already works. You end with something that runs, not a plan that doesn't.
For operators who've already read the book, implemented the framework, and hit the interesting walls. A lightweight monthly engagement to tune, extend, and answer the questions nobody else can.
For founders and senior leaders who want a thinking partner alongside the build. A longer engagement combining architecture work with ongoing advisory on how to run the system once it's live.
Tell me what problem you're actually trying to solve. If I can help, I'll say so — and if I can't, I'll say that too, and probably know someone who can.
Email me