Saigin

Govender

Saigin Govender is a technology executive with over 20 years of experience in product management, engineering and AI. He held roles at pioneering companies both large and small. Most recently, Saigin was CPO/CTO at Block Renovation — a Series C startup redefining the $450B renovation industry. Prior to Block, he was Director of Artificial Intelligence at Meta, where he bootstrapped and led Meta’s first AI Research product team (the team now at the forefront of many of today’s AI breakthroughs); CPO/CTO at Tumblr, where he oversaw 200M monthly active users; Vice President of Product Innovation at Verizon Media; and a product and engineering leader at Amazon Alexa, where he was part of the small team that launched the original Amazon Echo. Prior to his career in the US, Saigin held positions at a number of major Canadian technology, media and telecom companies.

Saigin earned his Bachelor of Applied Science and Engineering degree from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Nanotechnology. He subsequently earned his MBA from INSEAD (France/Singapore).

Saigin was born in South Africa. He immigrated to Canada at 15, and spent over 14 years in Toronto. He later immigrated to the US, and currently resides in Saint Petersburg, Florida.