Our perspective

We write about Model Debt as operators rather than academic researchers. The framework is informed by experience building and governing enterprise software, leading governance and certification programs, and managing organizations through technology and operating-model change.


About the authors

Rudolf Melik and Ludwig Melik are the operators developing and testing the Model Debt framework.

Ludwig Melik

Former CEO, Planbox

Ludwig Melik has served as CEO of Planbox and IdeaConnection, as President of Operations North America and Chief Revenue Officer at HYPE Innovation, and as President of Upland Software, where he led six acquisitions and a Nasdaq listing within thirty months.

He was a member of the ISO 56000 standards body committee for innovation management systems. He co-founded Tenrox and later built and sold Planbox in 2024, and is co-author of Professional Services Automation, published by Wiley.

Rudolf Melik

Head of AI Innovation, Nakisa

Rudolf Melik is Head of AI Innovation at Nakisa, an enterprise software company, where he was executive sponsor of its ISO 42001 implementation and has worked on responsible-AI and AI-security requirements from a product perspective as well as the company-wide AI usage policy. He holds an ISO 42001 lead implementer certification and a CIPP/C privacy credential.

Previously, he led company-wide ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, CSA STAR, and Cyber Essentials programs as President and Chief Product Strategy Officer of Planbox. He co-founded Tenrox, growing it to more than 800 customers across 50 countries before its sale in 2012. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from McGill University and is co-author of Professional Services Automation and author of The Rise of the Project Workforce, both published by Wiley.