Jigar B. Desai, PhD, PE, MBA

Founder @ Three and a Half Things

Jigar B. Desai, PhD, PE, EMBA, is the creator of “3½ Things,” a thought leadership series on what it means to lead in the age of AI: three lessons and one he is still figuring out. By day, he is a Principal and Regional Manager at ECS Limited, a national engineering consulting firm, where he leads the Mid-Atlantic Building Science and Infrastructure service line, a roughly 20-person team across six offices serving healthcare, higher education, and commercial clients. His work sits at the intersection of technical depth, business leadership, and AI-era decision-making, translating frontier tools into practical strategy for expertise-driven organizations. Jigar is a featured speaker at BuiltWorlds national conferences, the most-listened guest on the AEC AI & Tech Strategy Podcast (out of 100 episodes over a four-year period ending January 2026), a guest lecturer at Villanova University’s Colleges of Engineering and Business, and a member of his firm’s AI Committee. He is the author of the original (AI + MI) × HI™ framework, which he uses to help leaders move beyond AI hype to deliberate adoption rooted in human judgment, taste, and stewardship. He brings technical credibility, business fluency, and honest curiosity to every stage, along with an admission that the most interesting questions about AI at work are still being figured out.

• 2026