66degrees Appoints Subhashini Panyam as Chief People Officer to Lead People Strategy and Scale AI-Native Forward Deployed Engineering Model

CHICAGO, Sept. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today 66degrees announced the appointment of Subhashini (Subha) Panyam as Chief People Officer. Subha joins the executive leadership team with more than two decades of global human resources leadership across technology, product, engineering, and services organizations, including Hitachi, Broadridge, and ADP. Most recently Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Hitachi Digital Services, Subha has spent her career building globally integrated teams across North America, India, and other markets, and advancing the adoption of AI across talent practices. She will lead the people function and talent strategy as 66degrees scales its AI-native delivery model and forward deployed engineering capabilities.

As a leader in full stack AI-native delivery, 66degrees helps clients transform to AI-native enterprises by combining deep industry and business-process expertise, Paradigm°⎯the company's agentic platform that centralizes intelligence and expertise, and forward deployed engineers that deliver localized solutions for clients. Subha's top area of focus will be building end-to-end talent capabilities to develop and enable 66degrees' forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Building an effective model for developing FDEs will drive significant value for 66degrees and its clients in their transformation to AI-first and AI-native enterprises. With demand accelerating, including through 66degrees' introduction of Paradigm°OS for AI workflow transformation, which is part of the broader Paradigm° agentic platform, 66degrees continues to invest in its platform and people to deliver value at scale for clients.

What Sets 66degrees' Forward Deployed Engineers Apart

Key differentiators across 66degrees' FDEs are proximity to the client, business process expertise, full-stack depth across the Google Cloud platform, deep familiarity with Paradigm°, and training at 66degrees' FDE University. A deep understanding of business processes and operational challenges in 66degrees' focused verticals of HCLS, Supply Chain, Retail, and Financial Services is the first area where 66degrees FDEs stand out from industry peers. Further, training across the Google Cloud platform and on Paradigm° allows 66degrees to differentiate its FDE offering by accelerating platform, data, and AI modernization across the enterprise.

"The FDEs we place inside a client's operations create the client's experience of 66degrees. I have learned you only get one first impression in life and with clients. Because of this, we are placing significant investment behind training and enabling our FDEs. Everything else we've built, Paradigm°, agentic workflows, and Google Cloud expertise, reaches our clients through our FDEs. For this reason, I am thrilled about the critical task Subha is undertaking to recruit, train, and enable our FDEs. Her background has prepared her for this moment to help 66degrees create this catalyst for our business and our clients."

— Ben Kessler, Chief Executive Officer of 66degrees

66degrees FDE University: Developing the Forward Deployed Engineer for the AI-Native Enterprise

66degrees' FDE University (FDEU) is where the modern forward deployed engineer is developed, and Subha will help advance and lead FDEU as the first cohort launches this October. Rather than searching for engineers who already hold the full combination of needed skills, FDEU builds it: senior engineers with proven Google Cloud depth are developed into forward deployed engineers through capability assessment and intensive instruction in industry operations and business process, all conducted on Paradigm°, so platform delivery is second nature by the time they are deployed at a client.

"AI doesn't create business value in a slide deck—it creates value in production. That's why we created FDE University. We don't just deploy engineers; we field 66degrees FDEs who combine deep Google Cloud mastery, business acumen, and our Paradigm° platform to solve the hardest enterprise challenges from day one."

— Tanwir Danish, EVP Global Head of Data and AI of 66degrees

One Global Integrated Team, Developed to One Standard

Beyond launching FDE University and helping develop a pipeline of FDEs, Subha's role extends to the organization itself: building one global team and one global culture across 66degrees' North American, India, and international centers, where people in every market share the same culture, the same opportunity to grow, and the same sense of being part of one company. Subha will lead formal initiatives in investing in leaders, in careers, and in ways of working that let people across the company collaborate as one team across markets, delivering great outcomes for our clients and partners.

"Our opportunity is to build the talent, leadership, and culture that enable people and AI to work together in new ways, creating an organization that innovates continuously. That starts with our people: investing in their growth, giving them leaders worth following, and building a culture where learning is constant and everyone, in every market, feels part of one team doing meaningful work."

— Subhashini Panyam, Chief People Officer of 66degrees

About 66degrees

66degrees is an AI-native engineering company that partners with enterprises to turn AI into a compounding advantage. Engineering across the full Google Cloud stack, from the AI-ready data foundation to the agentic operating systems that run AI-native enterprises, 66degrees combines forward-deployed engineers with Paradigm°, its agentic delivery platform, grounded in how each client operates. A Google Cloud Diamond Partner and 2026 Google Cloud Partner of the Year for AI, 66degrees serves enterprises across healthcare, life sciences, financial services, retail, supply chain, and legal. Learn more at 66degrees.com.

SOURCE 66degrees