How this Technocrat is Automating Accounting's Messiest Problems with AI at Mesh Engineering and systems infrastructure expert Nandini Ramakrishnan set out to solve as co-founder and CTO of Mesh, a fintech platform using AI to automate error-prone accounting workflows.

Many financial institutions still rely on manual, disconnected workflows for core accounting tasks, often using mismatched tools like spreadsheets, third-party software, and legacy systems.

This fragmented setup slows teams down, creates oversight gaps, and increases the risk of costly errors, ultimately undermining the accuracy and reliability of financial reporting.

This is what financial engineering and systems infrastructure expert Nandini Ramakrishnan set out to solve as co-founder and CTO of Mesh, a fintech platform using AI to automate error-prone accounting workflows.

Mesh uses AI agents to connect fragmented tools, monitor workflows for patterns and anomalies, and automate essential tasks like reconciliation, reporting, and discrepancy resolution. By reducing dependency on manual input, Nandini's platform empowers finance teams to minimize errors, reduce repetitive work, and gain real-time visibility into their operations, helping them build a stronger, more accurate accounting foundation.

Read on for a closer look at Nandini's early life, foundation in systems thinking, and how Mesh is revolutionizing financial operations with AI.

An Early Path to Systems Thinking

Born and raised in India, Nandini began experimenting with coding at the age of eight. She credits her grandmother Lalitha, a former teacher with a degree in mathematics, for giving her a strong foundation in logic and structure.

"She used to tutor me every day after school," Nandini recalls. "Thanks to her, it always felt ingrained in me to look at everything from an analytical perspective. And having such a powerful female mentor in STEM so early on greatly inspired me to pursue technical fields with confidence."

That early curiosity led her to study electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where she completed both her bachelor's and master's degrees and developed a deep understanding of the technical challenges behind building backend systems that support complex, real-world operations.

She began working as a software engineer shortly after graduating, taking roles at Genesys and eBay before joining Carta, a fund administration platform for venture capital and private equity firms. She quickly rose from engineer to technical lead, playing a key role in building the company's infrastructure for fund setup, audits, and internal tools, all of which helped drive Carta's growth from $20 million to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Nandini's experience at Carta gave her a first-hand understanding of how to design financial systems that are both scalable and dependable, knowledge that would prove essential in the next stage of her career.

How Mesh Uses AI To Eliminate Accounting Errors

In late 2024, Nandini co-founded Mesh, a platform built to automate the accounting tasks that many firms still handle manually.

Despite the advent of modern software tools, many core workflows like transaction reconciliation, financial reporting, and document management often require teams to copy data between systems, verify records by hand, and track down information across emails, spreadsheets, and third-party platforms. These fragmented processes aren't only time-consuming but also increase the risk of costly errors. In fact, surveys show 59% of accountants report making financial errors each month, with 18% admitting to daily mistakes.

Mesh reduces that friction by acting as an intelligent, automated bookkeeper. Its AI agents integrate with a company's existing systems, learn its specific workflows, and take over repetitive tasks such as transaction matching, discrepancy detection, report generation, and document classification. The platform also offers a unified dashboard with real-time visibility into payments and transactions, as well as a built-in chatbot to handle detailed queries and follow-ups.

Nandini's experience at Carta, where audit readiness and system reliability were non-negotiable, was invaluable during the development of Mesh. She built the architecture with robust data validation protocols, clear audit trails, and safeguards to prevent inaccurate AI outputs (also known as "hallucinations"), ensuring that it's transparent, dependable, and ready for businesses of any size.

By automating time-consuming, error-prone work, Mesh allows professionals to focus on higher-value tasks like analysis, compliance, and planning, making it especially valuable in high-stakes industries like healthcare, real estate, and investment management, where small accounting errors can carry major consequences.

"Accurate, automated accounting should be table stakes for all kinds of businesses, whether they're big or small." Nandini explains. "At Mesh, I get to build AI agents that can safely and reliably take on the kind of gnarly, error-prone work no one wants to do by hand."

Nandini's Approach to Leadership

Nandini's scope extends well beyond her technical work. Her aim is to build a steady presence as a thoughtful leader in the engineering community, taking a visible, hands-on approach in both team settings and public forums.

She first began building this approach at Carta, where she invested deeply in developing early-career engineers by leading cross-functional projects, running weekly design reviews, hosting pair programming sessions, and helping team members grow into leadership roles.

Nandini carried that same commitment over to Mesh. She represented the company at Y Combinator's Demo Day, pitching to more than 1,000 investors and securing a spot in the accelerator's Winter 2025 batch, as well as at events like GenAI Collective meetups, Product Hunt showcases, and most recently, an AI privacy panel hosted by Founders Creative.

For Nandini, effective leadership is about building and nurturing the systems and cultures that help engineering teams work well together and deliver reliable results; an approach that continues to guide her today.

Rewiring Accounting with AI

Nandini envisions Mesh becoming much more than just a tool for automating accounting tasks. With AI adoption accelerating, she sees it as a blueprint for how the technology can be thoughtfully integrated into critical business operations.

"Tasks that weren't automatable just a few years ago now are," she concludes. "We have an opportunity to fundamentally reshape how accounting and finance teams operate and set a new standard for how AI agents can be utilized in compliance-heavy industries."

Designed to support everyone from early-stage startups to large enterprises, Mesh has emerged as an efficient solution built for reliability, accuracy, and long-term trust.

As more companies look to streamline operations, reduce manual effort, and maintain transparency, BIZ Experiencess like Nandini Ramakrishnan are driving the shift toward smarter, more reliable finance workflows.