Jun 2023 – Present · 2 yrs 11 mos · Hybrid

• The Happy Horizons Group, is building design led institutions and organizations creating impact, working towards better education, affordable quality healthcare, and livelihoods, with a focus on large scale employment.
• The group's 5I guiding principles: Innovation, Industries, Institutions, Investments, Impact
• The group's companies:
• 1. Fondesan (Happy Horizons Consulting) - Design, Technology and Strategy Consulting.
• 2. Happy Horizons Healthcare - Rethinking the Rural Healthcare delivery model.
• 3. Happy Horizons Trust - Non-Profit working to improve quality of education in schools, and empowering youth in Bihar and Uttarakhand.
• 4. The Happy Kids - Play school and Activity center, aimed to provide quality early childhood education in Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 Cities in India.

May 2023 – Present · 3 yrs · On-site

• Designing and building a chain of Early Childhood Learning and Activity Centers, imparting education via play-based pedagogy, focusing on the holistic development of child. We are creating safe and playful learning experiences for early childhood education.
• Currently operational in Madhepura and Saharsa district of Bihar.

Oct 2020 – Present · 5 yrs 7 mos · Bangalore | Noida | Patna · Hybrid

• Building Karekeba Ventures to invest in impact driven startups in post revenue stage.
• Portcos: Corover, Styleworks, Hanuman, ZiffyHealth, Jobsgaar, Jhaji Pickles, Fydo amongst others.

Mar 2020 – May 2023 · 3 yrs 2 mos · Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

• UX and Product Design for Financial Inclusion for Consumers and Merchants in India.
• My role involves various aspects in Design Leadership.
• 1. Heading Design for the Merchant Ecosystem - comprising of over 30 million merchants in India.
• Lead the Paytm for Business app design team for small and medium merchants
• Leading the Unified Merchants portal (UMP) Product team - the B2B product offering for large and small merchants.
• Leading the Design team for the Paytm Service Agent app meant for the field service executives onboarding the merchants and providing first hand support
• 2. Heading Design Operations
• Building a culture of learning - facilitating knowledge sharing sessions internally and also with team members participating in external events.
• Better Hiring process.
• Designing Effective onboarding for new hires.
• Anchoring the Design team maturity journey in terms of better processes in engagement with different stakeholders (Design, Product, Business and Tech).
• Leading the Design of Paytm Design Handbook
• 3. Head of Design Research - Anchoring the research across different products for the Merchants and Consumer Ecosystem.
• Led a Pan India study on offline merchants and the QR Code usage across different locations and Merchant Profiles.
• Anchored the research for understanding usage of Customer Services Calls for the Merchant Ecosystem.
• 4. Learning & Development - Facilitating learning sessions on User Experience Design, Systems Thinking and Design Thinking for Product Managers and other stakeholders.

Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 · 1 yr · Gurgaon, India · On-site

• Heading the User Experience across the different products and services platforms.
• Talent hiring and training to build cross functional teams, working closely with Product Leaders to drive good Customer Experience Delivery.
• Defining Design Operations and Execution Strategies and execution.
• Building Design Culture both Internally and Externally.
• Driving Design Community in the National Capital Region.

Feb 2017 – Aug 2019 · 2 yrs 6 mos · New Delhi & Bihar

• Using Human Centred Design and System Design Thinking to design products and services to improve the quality of education in schools. I led the growth of the organisation from 2 person to a 45 people team and from one block to a whole district of 10 blocks, outreaching to 35 schools and over 7000 students. Engaged with all stakeholders from beneficiaries to donors to state authorities.
• Gained deep insights into working in the education domain by working closely with students, youth, teachers, government bodies and donor agencies.
• Projects I worked on:
• SERVICE DESIGN
• 1. Design of a Fellowship program for the Development of Youth
• 2. Program for grade 1 to 5 students : Storytelling as Pedagogy to drive Overall Development of Child
• PRODUCT DESIGN
• 1. Niyantra - Android based Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation platform
• 2. Soochak - Capacity Building product for Teachers
• IMPACT
• Outreach to over 7000 students in primary school level
• Design and Launch of Mini Libraries in 35 schools
• Rise in reading levels of children
• Better attendance levels in schools
• Generation of Employment for youth in local affordable private schools
• Happy Horizons Trust was featured as a case study in the Kelly School of Business, Indiana University, USA.

May 2015 – Jun 2017 · 2 yrs 1 mo · Noida, Delhi NCR

• Involved in setting up and managing of The Design Village, an interdisciplinary, industry centric institute offering undergraduate and post graduate courses in Design.

Apr 2013 – Aug 2015 · 2 yrs 4 mos · Bangalore

• I taught User Experience Design, Design Strategy and Usability at the Executive MBA Program in Product Leadership. The students of the class where industry professionals with a minimum of 8 years of experience.

May 2012 – May 2016 · 4 yrs · Bengaluru Area, India

• Working with startups and mid size companies to drive design driven solutions.
• Specialised in User Experience Design Consulting, Design Research, Branding and Corporate Identity.
• Major Clients & Products I worked in during this period:
• 1. Eka - Commodity Trading web application
• 2. Healthyhum - Healthcare app to manage personal and family doctor appointments, maintain medical history and engage in consultations.
• 3. Revauc - Reverse Auctioning Platform for individual and group purchase of deals
• 4. Whizkard - An integrated system comprising of Managing Digital Payments and Loyalty Points, keeping in mind the ability to redeem at stores on the go.
• 5. Connect Glocal Platform - A platform to connect Non-profits and Company CSR better, to apply for available funds and understand performance of organisations and various projects run by CSR.
• 6. Divi Authoring Tool - an e-learning Authoring tool for teachers and educators in schools. The tool allowed teachers to intuitively create questions, quizzes and other learning materials

Feb 2012 – Sep 2017 · 5 yrs 7 mos · Delhi & Bangalore

• Led the India Studio operations of L'école de design Nantes Atlantique, one of the top design institutes in France. I led the studio across Delhi and Bangalore over 5 years. The responsibilities included the design of education programs, building design team and building the Design culture within the studio.
• I was in charge of the successful delivery of the different programs, curriculum design on Social Innovations and Design Thinking. I was responsible for guiding students in the graduate projects and over the course, and during this period, I mentored over 50 student projects.
• The program had a very high student satisfaction in terms of the overall experience of getting exposed to design in India and the challenges with designing for complex systems. A few of the projects went on to win awards internationally.

May 2011 – Jun 2012 · 1 yr 1 mo · Bangalore

• Involved in setting up and managing Design team within the organization. Worked primarily on web based, mobile, and social applications.
• Projects I worked on:
• 1. txtWeb - (powered by Intuit ) A dynamic content publishing and service creation platform for making information and services available via SMS for free
• 2. Fasal - Web portal for service to farmers and other bottom of pyramid consumers platform to seek timely information on weather, crops, and market trends
• 3. Social Commerce Framework- Product offering to do e-commerce on social media platforms, engage with customers and drive promotions using better analytics.
• 4. Encount - iPhone Mobile application as a solution for Social Customer Relationship Management.

May 2009 – Mar 2011 · 1 yr 10 mos · Bangalore

• I was involved with Deskala right from the initial setting up of the company and running it.
• My role comprised of conducting User Research, and creating User Experience rich solutions for various clients, helping out with client's Branding needs and Conducting Design Workshops across audiences.
• The other things I was involved in was Marketing, Social Media presence, Recruitment and Design Evangelism.
• Clients I worked with :
• Eka Software, IIM Kozhikode, Cinedarbaar, Dewworks, Toehold, NetBramha Studios, Health Scribes, The Color Caravan, AKM Communications, Grey Water, Knowledge Varsity, RevAuc

Jun 2008 – Aug 2008 · 2 mos · Chicago

• As an Intern I worked on Interaction Design for Touch Screen mobile phones in the productivity phones segment. I was working on Windows Mobile platform mostly.
• Projects I worked on :
• 1. Research and Design of Media Player, integrating carrier’s services for Windows Mobile 7.0 focusing on touch screen interactions for productivity phones.
• 2. Analysis of existing user flows and creating new interactions for home screen on Windows Mobile 6.1 based touch screen phone.

Aug 2007 – May 2009 · 1 yr 9 mos · Bloomington, Indiana Area

• Senior Capstone Project Mentor for Undergraduate students.
• Assistant Instructor for Multimedia Arts and Technology, Course.
• Duties involved teaching Flash as a tool to create media.

Aug 2005 – Jul 2007 · 1 yr 11 mos · Bengaluru Area, India · On-site

• Worked as a UI Designer working on web,desktop and palmtop applications.
• Key tasks involved: Interaction design of software, wireframes creation, Usability Analysis of developed applications and Visual Designs.
• Clients that I worked on:
• Microsoft, Hitachi HiFIRE, World Economic Forum, Argos, Motorola, Setlabs, Syngenta