May 2022 – May 2025 · 3 yrs · San Francisco Bay Area

• ➔ Led the design of next-generation AWS Industry Products that enabled digital transformation across key verticals including automotive, manufacturing, energy, sustainability, healthcare, and life sciences.
• ➔ Owned the 0-to-1 product design journey for a portfolio of industry-specific solutions - each launched into Private Availability with early customer adoption, validated product-market fit, and offset development costs through initial revenue.
• ➔ Partnered directly with strategic customers to co-develop AI-native applications leveraging emerging technologies, scaling innovation and operational learnings across multiple industries.
• ➔ Built and scaled a high-performing, global UX organization - including designers, researchers, technologists, and technical writers - embedded with Outcome-Driven Engineering and product leadership teams across AWS.
• ➔ Operationalized a user-centered design culture across a distributed product and engineering org by developing self-serve research tools and scalable mechanisms to embed customer insights into decision-making and raise the UX bar.
• ➔ Championed an AI-first design strategy to deliver intuitive enterprise experiences that empowered business users to achieve 10x productivity and unlock creative potential.

Jan 2021 – Present · 5 yrs 3 mos · Palo Alto, California, United States · On-site

• Coaching the final year Mechanical Engineering under-grad students majoring in Product Design and working on their advanced design project. (Winter & Spring quarters)

Nov 2019 – Apr 2022 · 2 yrs 5 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

• ➔ Led the end-to-end design strategy that modernized vSphere into a cloud-connected, modern-app ready SaaS platform, enabling customers to build and scale developer-friendly multi-cloud infrastructure.
• ➔ Orchestrated unified customer experiences across multiple business units by aligning product visions and integrating design across boundaries.
• ➔ Facilitated cross-functional workshops to define product vision, prioritize user needs, and establish success metrics - driving alignment from discovery to delivery.
• ➔ Directed strategic user research initiatives that informed long-term product roadmap decisions and innovation opportunities.
• ➔ Mentored and coached globally distributed product teams, elevating design maturity and fostering a culture of user-centered decision-making.

Mar 2018 – Dec 2019 · 1 yr 9 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

• ➔ Mentored early-stage and growth-stage startups across FinTech, HealthTech, and EdTech, shaping product vision, market fit, and design strategy.
• ➔ Guided stage FinTech startups on their product and service design strategy, by helping them spot opportunities to integrate at scale and for the Banks to innovate at speed.
• ➔ Coached in-house design teams to establish scalable design practices, tooling, and talent pipelines aligned with product development goals and speed.
• ➔ Supported four startups in securing a combined $5M in angel investment by helping them refine user experience, product-market fit, customer journeys, and investor-facing narratives

Dec 2017 – Nov 2019 · 1 yr 11 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

• ➔ Led 25+ member cross-functional Design and Innovation team within the Corporate Strategy group, embedding user-centered innovation across lines of businesses such as retail, personal finance, weath management and SMB banking.
• ➔ Standardized product strategy, product management, and design methodologies across business units to ensure consistent delivery and alignment.
• ➔ Integrated customer research and voice of customer programs to drive human-centered approach for building products that help customers take smart financial decisions and achieve financial wellbeing.
• ➔ Facilitated high-impact design thinking workshops with executives and LOB stakeholders that generated breakthrough concepts for new products and services in retail banking, personal finance, wealth management and SMB banking.
• ➔ Partnered closely with engineering and C-suite leaders to develop enterprise-wide innovation capabilities - accelerating product development cycles and elevating customer experience.
• ➔ As a core member of the Agile Transformation Leadership team, I helped cross-functional teams adopt an Agile mindset and accelerate time to market.

Jul 2017 – Nov 2017 · 4 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

• I worked as an independent design consultant leading research-driven product strategy and design projects for early-stage and established start-ups in Fin-tech, Health-tech and Ed-tech. I trained and coached in-house product teams in Agile UX and setting up design systems, practices and talent.

May 2010 – Jun 2017 · 7 yrs 1 mo · San Francisco Bay Area

• ➔ Built industry-leading global design team of 1200+ user researchers, UX designers, Visual designers, design managers, front-end architects and UI engineers
• ➔ Established a design strategy consulting team in North America and Europe focused on strategic product design projects (Grew to a 50+ strong consulting team in less than 2 years)
• ➔ Designed and delivered many consumer and enterprise products based on user research, industry-specific insights, and emerging digital technologies
• ➔ Conducted many design thinking and product envisioning workshops with senior executives from business, product and engineering teams
• ➔ Established design frameworks and solutions, winning new clients, industry awards and analyst recognition for the design practice
• ➔ Led internal and external business development efforts to grow the design practice and revenue
• ➔ Managed key client relationships at CXO and SVP level across business and engineering teams
• ➔ Led $100+ million Interactive Design practice and delivered over 45% YoY highly-profitable growth in the first four years

Aug 2008 – May 2010 · 1 yr 9 mos · Pune Area, India

• ➔ Built and mentored a 35+ member global Experience Design practice within the first year
• ➔ Directed Experience design and innovation projects for leading banks like HSBC, RBS, AXA and Lloyds Banking Group (Retail Banking, Wealth Management, Capital Market and Insurance)
• ➔ Led CX strategy and design for One HSBC - a global product platform for a consistent and scalable multi-channel experience
• ➔ Evangelized User Experience Design in an engineering driven culture and established user-centered approach to build business-IT solutions and win new business

Apr 2000 – Jul 2008 · 8 yrs 3 mos · Mumbai Area, India

• ➔ Played a key role in establishing and growing HFI's operations in Asia and Europe
• ➔ Built and managed a 150+ member team of researchers, UX designers, art directors and rapid prototypers
• ➔ Directed hundreds of User Experience Research and Design projects for global clients from industries such as financial services, telecom, healthcare, mobile, technology, ERP, automotive, e-commerce
• ➔ Led many design innovation projects for emerging markets while working with research institutions such as MIT Media Labs and HP Labs in Asia
• ➔ Delivered many UX training courses for HFI's CUA certification program across the globe (10+ countries)
• ➔ Managed Quality initiative leading to ISO 9001:2000 certification for HFI (first for a design consultancy)

Jul 1999 – Mar 2000 · 8 mos · Mumbai, India

• ➔ Worked directly with C-suite stakeholders to redesign TCS’s corporate website (www.tcs.com) to serve its’ global footprint of customers, partners, employees and analysts.
• ➔ Contributed to designing solutions for many winning RFPs leading to millions of dollars in new business and acquisition of strategic clients like General Electric

Feb 1999 – Jul 1999 · 5 mos · Mumbai Area, India

• ➔ Directed UX for computer and web based training programs for clients such as British Petroleum.
• ➔ Coached and mentored Instructional and Visual Designers on human-centered approach to content and training design.

Dec 1996 – Jan 1999 · 2 yrs 1 mo · Japan

• ➔ Played a key role in setting up ASB's 100% export-oriented manufacturing plant in India
• ➔ Led design of the plant layout and customer experience for ASB's India operations
• ➔ Managed training and knowledge transfer from Japan to a large team of CAD/CAM designers in India

Jan 1995 – Dec 1996 · 1 yr 11 mos · Mumbai Area, India

• ➔ Set up of an Industrial Design studio with CAD and rapid prototyping capabilities
• ➔ Designed range of outdoor lighting for pathways, gardens and commercial spaces
• ➔ Led product design for next gen street lighting using innovative high-pressure sodium lamp in compact low cost housing
• ➔ Realized 67% cost savings by introducing new plastic materials and manufacturing processes

Apr 1994 – Jul 1994 · 3 mos · Mumbai Area, India

• ➔ Worked on re-design of medium capacity frost-free refrigerators for Indian market.
• ➔ Studied nuanced customer needs of a typical middle-class urban and semi-urban household, their food habits and storage needs
• ➔ Build prototypes to be presented to senior executives and decision makers