Vijendra Rao
Chennai
Summary
Product and program management leader with 14+ years in BFSI and fintech, specializing in digital payments, card issuing, merchant acquiring, digital wallets, and risk management. Adept at driving product strategy, managing full product lifecycles, and leading cross-functional teams to deliver high-impact solutions. Expertise in agile methodologies (SAFe, Scrum), stakeholder management, and go-to-market execution. Skilled in scaling products, optimizing API architectures, and implementing data-driven decision-making to enhance business growth. Passionate about fostering a collaborative, high-performance culture while driving innovation and sustainable business expansion.
Overview
16
16
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Product and Program Manager - Consultant
Troogue
Chennai
03.2025 - Current
- Defined the product vision to develop an AI-based agentic talent acquisition and human resource management platform.
- Developed a 12-month product roadmap by gathering requirements from HR ops, engineering documented EPICs and Features.
- Established program scope, objectives, and deliverables in collaboration with stakeholders.
- Led sprint planning and daily standups for an agile team of 10 members, ensuring alignment with product strategy.
- Communicated detailed program plans, timelines, resource allocation, program status, risks, and dependencies to stakeholders at all levels, including executive leadership.
- Identified and mitigated program risks by monitoring key milestones and metrics, highlighting achievements and areas for improvement.
- Managed program budgets to ensure projects were delivered within allocated resources.
Product Owner
PagoNxt Merchant Solutions India Pvt. Ltd
Chennai
10.2022 - 11.2023
- Spearheaded the modularization of the legacy pricing and billing platform, facilitating the expansion of POS and eCommerce products into the UK and European markets while enabling the migration of 250,000 merchants from third-party vendor platforms.
- Designed a 6-month product roadmap by collaborating with merchant ops, product, engineering, legal, sales, and marketing teams to gather requirements and document EPIC features.
- Led sprint planning and daily standups for two agile teams of 16 members, ensuring alignment with product strategy.
- Achieved 95% defect-free product releases by reviewing user stories, release documents, and sprint demos.
- Contributed to product launches by working with stakeholders to develop a go-to-market strategy, training materials, and customer communications.
- Enhanced the platform by monitoring invoice generation time, approval time, CSAT, and revenue metrics.
Fraud Prevention Analyst/ Program Manager
PayPal
Chennai
08.2020 - 10.2022
- Addressed a 40% increase in risk investigation headcount by developing a strong business case, assembling a dedicated team, and executing an automation-driven project plan-delivering cost savings of $1-3 million.
- Defined program/project scope, goals, and deliverables by partnering with Product, Engineering, and Business teams.
- Improved task completion rate by 30% by tracking project progress and resolving risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies.
- Accelerated project delivery timelines through strategic negotiations, achieving $80,000 in hiring cost savings.
- Replaced the risk and fraud reports into near real-time KPI/ KRI dashboards within 4 months by guiding a team of analysts.
- Supervised a team of analysts, increasing their productivity by 10-15% through mentoring and implementing SMART goals.
Senior Solution Consultant
WireCard India Pvt. Ltd
Chennai
12.2018 - 08.2020
- Delivered a $10 million multi-currency wallet, mobile app, forex card, and loyalty points project.
- Developed 3 BRDs by leading requirement gathering session with clients, banks, schemes (MasterCard), and vendors.
- Defined 20+ high-level solutions by collaborating with product and development teams.
- Trained a 25-member customer support team by defining training agenda and planning sessions, leading to 30% reduction in TAT.
- Ensured customer satisfaction with product increments by contributing to UAT and product demonstration.
Business Analyst
Airtel Payments Bank
Gurugram
09.2015 - 11.2018
- Implemented customer onboarding, digital KYC, prepaid/debit card, UPI, and core banking migration projects.
- Managed three Scrum teams, increasing productivity by 15% by resolving risk, issues, dependencies and monitoring releases.
- Accelerated release cycles for the mobile app by 30% through process optimization.
- Recruited four Scrum Masters by screening 30 candidates and facilitated seamless onboarding through mentorship and project integration.
Business Analyst
CoreCard Software's India Pvt. Ltd
Bhopal
05.2013 - 09.2015
- Enhanced payments transaction security by leading the end-to-end launch of fraud containment module within two years.
- Facilitated responses to RFPs by clarifying queries and analyzing requirements.
Assistant Manager - Program Management
PayMate India Pvt. Ltd
Mumbai
02.2011 - 04.2013
- Administered project management activities for India's 1st mobile POS product.
- Reduced delays by 20% by monitoring project deliveries and mitigating risks for 6+ large-scale projects.
- Increased revenue by 27% for the car rental B2B vertical by implementing a tier-based pricing strategy.
Business Analyst - Contractor
Bharti-Axa Life Insurance Co. Ltd
Mumbai
07.2010 - 01.2011
- Improved decision-making by converting 8+ business performance reports into dashboards.
Business Analyst
Three Sixty Degrees Solutions Pvt. Ltd
Mumbai
07.2009 - 06.2010
- Implemented a web-based ERP product for a jewelry manufacturing client.
Education
Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science
Bansal Institute of Science And Technology
07.2008
Skills
- Product strategy
- Product road mapping
- Strategic thinking
- Market research
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Team leadership
- Program management
- Project planning
- SOAP/REST APIs
- ISO 8583 Messaging Standards
- JIRA
- Confluence
- MS Project
- Tableau
- SQL
- Hiring
- Coaching
- Mentoring
- Agile methodologies ( SAFe, Scrum)
Certification
- Product management, Indian School of Business, 12/01/23, 03/01/24
- SAFe 5 PO/PM, Scaled Agile, 08/01/21, 09/01/21
- Scrum Master, Scrum Alliance, 04/01/18, 05/01/18
- 35 hours of training in project management, PMI
- 35 hours of training in business analysis, IIBA
Accomplishments
- Promoted at Wirecard and Airtel Payments Bank within two to three years of joining each organization
- Received the Bravo Banker award for successfully executing multiple projects at Airtel Payments Bank
- Recognized for automating the business KPI dashboards at Bharti AXA Life Insurance Co Ltd.
Timeline
Product and Program Manager - Consultant
Troogue
03.2025 - Current
Product Owner
PagoNxt Merchant Solutions India Pvt. Ltd
10.2022 - 11.2023
Fraud Prevention Analyst/ Program Manager
PayPal
08.2020 - 10.2022
Senior Solution Consultant
WireCard India Pvt. Ltd
12.2018 - 08.2020
Business Analyst
Airtel Payments Bank
09.2015 - 11.2018
Business Analyst
CoreCard Software's India Pvt. Ltd
05.2013 - 09.2015
Assistant Manager - Program Management
PayMate India Pvt. Ltd
02.2011 - 04.2013
Business Analyst - Contractor
Bharti-Axa Life Insurance Co. Ltd
07.2010 - 01.2011
Business Analyst
Three Sixty Degrees Solutions Pvt. Ltd
07.2009 - 06.2010
Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science
Bansal Institute of Science And Technology
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