Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Interests
Timeline
Generic
Vikas Menon

Vikas Menon

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Bengaluru

Summary

I am an Executive Producer with 11+ years of live operations experience across web and mobile games such as CSR2 and Farmville: Country Escape. I have proven experience in building gold standard live operations framework ground up including scaling teams, setting up processes and best practices and defining the release rhythm. I created a team culture of delivering high quality (AAA) content predictably, transparency and efficiency. Over the last 3 years at CSR2, I was the primary point of communication for stakeholders across the globe on all matters content, roadmap and delivery.

Overview

13
13
years of professional experience

Work History

LIVE OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

ZYNGA | CSR2 RACING
07.2019 - 10.2023

Leads planning and execution of long term roadmap. Single point of contact for all communication & shares executive updates, project status, risks to all levels in Zynga

  • CONTENT ROADMAP: Accountable for content roadmap delivery and primary responsibility was ensuring that roadmap delivery was along predictable lines. Managed complex dependencies & led capacity planning of 70+ cross functional team members, external licensees and vendors to deliver 10% more content& 2 major updates in 2023, while improving team NPS by 22%
  • LEADERSHIP: Led production vertical (9 producers) in 70+ member team. Primary point of communication across division representing project status across organization and within team. Instituted culture of data driven and risk register frameworks to have single source of truth that conveyed key updates across org. Frequently presented to Zynga Executive team, including CEO. Led team All Hands Agenda and presentations.
  • PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS: Built a culture of continuous process improvements built around the core pillars of transparency, shipping high quality work and team happiness. This culture improved pre-production effectiveness by innovating on our workflows & significantly improved release quality of our live operations year over year.
  • COSTS & RESOURCING: Tracked and maintained Headcount, vendor effectiveness and budgets. Primary point of contact in submitting budget needs and creating costs/roadmap scenario based planning. Partnered with talent team in identifying talent gaps and hiring.

LIVE OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

FARMVILLE: COUNTRY ESCAPE
03.2016 - 06.2019

Responsible for game development pipeline and roadmap. Led capacity based planning designed workflows for 40+ cross functional organization. Managed a production team of 3

  • WORKFLOW PROCESSES: Reviewed and iterated on the pre-production phase. Focused on prototyping and visualizing what needs to be built before estimates are provided. Helped deliver major features on time and budget, and led to major success for the game outperforming targets by 15%
  • QUALITY & EFFICIENCY: Set standards for AAA execution, bringing player perspective in game development and improved release standards by reducing unplanned releases/hotfixes QoQ. Streamlined execution by automating core areas that were susceptible to errors, and by creating event templates
  • PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Transitioned the entire project planning framework from Google Spreadsheet to Smartsheet and then eventually to JIRA to give consistent visibility and accurate representation of the work that was happening at any point of time. This transition helped forge deeper trust and partnership with executive and discipline leaders and helped provide accurate forecasts for roadmap

SENIOR PRODUCER/LEAD PRODUCER

FARMVILLE 2, MAFIA WARS, CHEFVILLE
05.2012 - 02.2016

Production & execution lead for for various games directly involved in ensuring quality & business targets are met.

  • LIVE OPERATIONS: Spearheaded live operations pod and planning to deliver high quality experiences for players. Established quality benchmarks and outlined KPIs to analyze game health. Defined live game matrix that outlines SLAs & priorities running live game
  • STRIKE TEAM: Led "Ninja Pod" that worked outside game roadmap to deliver faster, incremental and more experimental features to players that could then be baked into the roadmap. This pod worked with very loose processes with emphasis on shipping incrementally. Directly led to revenue improvements over the year.
  • VIP PIPELINE: Was the primary player representative in the Studio. Led calls and interactions with VIP players over telephone conferences, focus group testing & social channels. Helped bring in relevant workflow changes that took in feedback/suggestions from players in the feature development pipeline

FOUNDER

AYAUTO RICKSHAWS
03.2011 - 04.2012

Founded AyAuto Radio Rickshaws - on demand rickshaw hailing service which scaled to a 15 employees running tech & operations, and contracted more than 300 rickshaws successfully. Links: https://yourstory.com/2012/02/enough-haggling-with-auto-wallahs-dial-ayauto/amp

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/challenging-the-auto-cracy/articleshow/10284006.cms


  • OPERATIONS: Delivered more than 2000 trips per day in less than 3 months of starting the business. Managed business, product & marketing and operations
  • FUNDING: Pitched business to investors and angels. Acquired funding from Angel Investors on the back of a strong business case and value proposition


Education

MBA - Marketing & Entrepreneurship

Flame School of Communication
Pune
03.2009 - 2011.03

Bachelor of Technology - Computer Science

Model Engineering College
Cochin
03.2002 - 2006.03

Skills

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT PIPLEINE : "Content is KING"

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Interests

RUNNING: Sub 60 min 10K runner, Sub 24 min 5K runner

GAMING: CS2 Premier Rating 6K with a goal to reach 10K; Actively playing Chess, Clash Royale and FPL

PRESENTATIONS: Regularly presents on various topics - Have presented various topics on gaming, production both at Zynga and outside

READING: Currently reading Elon Musk biography & The Lessons of History; Goal to read 6 books every year

MEMEMASTER: Proficient in creating & sharing bad memes on slack and whatsapp

Timeline

LIVE OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

ZYNGA | CSR2 RACING
07.2019 - 10.2023

LIVE OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

FARMVILLE: COUNTRY ESCAPE
03.2016 - 06.2019

SENIOR PRODUCER/LEAD PRODUCER

FARMVILLE 2, MAFIA WARS, CHEFVILLE
05.2012 - 02.2016

FOUNDER

AYAUTO RICKSHAWS
03.2011 - 04.2012

MBA - Marketing & Entrepreneurship

Flame School of Communication
03.2009 - 2011.03

Bachelor of Technology - Computer Science

Model Engineering College
03.2002 - 2006.03
Vikas MenonEXECUTIVE PRODUCER