Executive Leader, Growth, Product Management, Digital and CX
2020 - PRESENTIndependent Consulting and Strategy Advisory- Served as an executive leader, advisor/strategist concerning growth and product management for businesses. Advised about corporate strategies, business plans, roadmaps, growth strategies, brand identity values, missions, and product portfolio.
- Developed products and service portfolio. Helped with product research, strategy, roadmap market-fit, pricing, design, journey maps, UX, CX, MVP, features, epics, and backlogs.
- Oversaw product, growth strategies, marketing tactics, revenue, strategy (go-to-market), marketing plans, product positioning, storyboarding, marketing campaigns, lead generation, rebranding, repositioning, and sales and marketing playbooks.
- Led branding, messaging, and website redesigns including micro-sites, product features, and catalogs. Crafted customer stories, made explainer videos, made educational and marketing collateral as well as pitch decks, sales scripts, and gamification.
- Managed discovery sessions with customers and prospects; conducted due diligence, assessments, and as-is and to-be future roadmaps. Crafted technical and business solutions and recommendations. Led ideation workshops, POCs, and pilots.
- Oversaw RFP and RFI responses, developing RFP solutions, pricing, staffing, governance and operations models. Prepared solutions and presentations for CXOs and senior stakeholders.
- Established digital and CX practices. Led technology consulting and solutions including digital strategies, data sciences, cloud, Salesforce, QA, AI, ML, CX, UI, Mobility, RPA, and so on.
- Led cross-functional distributed teams (technical engineering, design, dev, marketing, and sales) using Agile and Kanban processes and methodologies and met with executive leadership, to discuss governance, metrics, and KPIs.
- Handled various key assignments: the digital/CX practice for a technology consulting firm; the digital strategy for telemedicine; data science and analytics product strategy for a gene therapy lab; digital, CX, data solutions for a tech startup.
- Worked on various strategies (eCommerce product, telehealth product, pandemic restart/re-opening of their product) and on an HR startup's branding positioning and website development.
Digital Product Strategist
2020 - 2020Private Equity, Healthcare Customer- Created a digital strategy to enable virtual care, telemedicine, e-pharmacy, mental health, and other care areas.
- Identified digital debt and current state evaluation, created a digital capability canvas, made recommendations, and built an enterprise digital strategy future state model.
- Developed customized digital scenarios that will enable partnerships and acquisitions. Fostered digital capabilities to create new revenue opportunities and enhance direct to consumer, (D2C), and various levels of B2B services.
- Leveraged next-generation digital technologies for a healthcare-digital strategy, including, customer experience transformation, bots, AI, ML, data, API and microservices, AR/VR, Blockchain, IoMT (Intenet of Medical Things), automation, and RPA.
- Created a digital journey, built a detailed roadmap, made recommendations, and designed an implementation plan.
Managing Director
2019 - 2020State Street Corporation- Oversaw a large scale transformation program and was responsible for program management and quality engineering of complex large scale, strategic banking initiatives, spanning multiple geographies, business units, and applications.
- Led and coached multi-domain, cross-functional, and globally distributed teams in an industrial scaled agile and kanban environment while driving quality, automation, performance, and security.
- Managed stakeholder relations with executive leadership, business, IT leadership, and cross department stakeholders. Implementing innovative processes, frameworks, and operating metrics.
- Drove strategic decisions, coached new leaders, and established OKRs and metrics along with strategizing budgets and sourcing models and vendor strategies.
- Delivered business value and cost avoidance, optimization, automation, and savings by assuring quality and velocity.
- Developed detailed plans, specifications, and operating processes and frameworks.
- Let multiple globally distributed, agile and Kanban teams.
- Conducted perforce reviews and training.
Global Head of Product Management and Digital Assurance
2015 - 2019Hexaware Technologies, Inc.- Set up the product management group across geographies, business verticals, and technology functions.
- Designed productization philosophy, methodology, and toolkits. Developed detailed market research, product roadmaps, MVP, and specifications.
- Established an entrepreneurial culture for sustained innovation.
- Built a hypergrowth product incubator for harnessing innovating and emerging technologies, including RPA, DLT, AI, CXT, and so on.
- Implemented gamification based rewards and recognition, created startup squads, and productized solutions.
- Mentored cross-functional teams through research and prototyping, product thinking, incubating, and stress testing ideas and go-to-market strategies.
- Transformed insights into accelerated growth, launched newer digital services and products including customer experience transformation, AI- and ML-driven automation, and analytics.
- Transformed the traditional testing services into a next generation agile digital assurance and quality engineering business line.
- Introduced newer offerings with agile, CI/CT and DevOps, AI and bots-driven automation, usability, user experience, and multichannel testing.
- Modernized testing skills with SDETS and partnership for cloud-based infrastructure and labs including synthetic data management.
- Led complete corporate, redesign, branding, and marketing.
- Oversaw full bid cycles, solutions design and architecture, customer engagements, pitching, messaging and positioning.
- Managed a book of business of about 100 million for driving new customer acquisitions and achieving growth in existing customer accounts.
- Handled the complete rebranding and revitalization of corporate websites, content, messaging, flow, site structure, interactive chats, and case studies.
- Crafted new pitch decks, microsites, campaign landing pages, including pitch, message, content, user flows, etc.
- Developed a new business unit strategy for solutions and product marketing strategy, including account-based marketing, direct marketing, campaigns, channels, partners, and vendors.
Vice President Digital and Quality Engineering
2014 - 2015NIIT Technologies, Inc.- Led the digital practice and conceptualized and created the full stack of next-generation digital services portfolio including mobility, analytics, UI/UX, and CX.
- Developed differentiating value propositions, go-to-market strategies, and partner ecosystems.
- Served as a trusted advisor and empowered Fortune 1000 customers to transform their business and gain market share through productized digital solutions, including, analytics, mobility, user experience. and social media solutions.
- Enabled next-generation quality engineering and testing expertise for the digital age.
- Accelerated business agility—ensuring seamless business orchestrations, and reducing total cost of operations by harnessing lean QA CoEs, testing as-a-service models, and innovative automation accelerators.
- Grew the digital practice portfolio to $25 million in annual growth from the ground up.
- Led the quality engineering business unit for the Americas and delivered $40 million in annual growth.
- Marketing strategy for North America territory. Developed solutions and product marketing strategy, including account based marketing. Collaboration with corporate marketing, partners, technical, inside sales, channels and field sales team to drive marketing plans, campaigns, customized webinars, etc.
Senior Director Strategic Services and Solutions
2003 - 2014Atos-Syntel, Inc.- Led a global technology consulting and solutions portfolio of 250 million.
- Spearheaded the quality and testing services business unit to 6X growth achieving $100 million in revenue.
- Established the global technology presales, consulting, and advisory organization to harness innovation and emerging technologies across, analytics, infrastructure, ERP, QA, and so on.
- Developed new offerings, solutions, and services, and led go-to-market and analyst and alliance interactions.
- Architected the transformation and optimization programs for Fortune 500 customers.
- Setup the global QA and testing service line from the ground up including conceptualized offerings, services, and competencies.
- Led the go-to-market strategy, alliances and partnerships. Crafting storyboards, value propositions, messaging and positioning for solutions and products. Coordination with different marketing, solutions and technical teams to drive adoption and customer acquisition.
- Established QA COEs and provided consulting and solutions to Fortune 500 customers across the globe.
Regional Head Quality Assurance
2002 - 2003Agilysis- Served as the head of the quality engineering group achieved maximum revenue across global operations.
- Set up the test lab, methodologies and matrices, and implemented global practices for certifying products and solutions.
- Represented the leadership council and the governance board.
- Led the global CMM/ISO certification.
Product Lead
2000 - 2001Tech M- Led the new product division, and the full product lifecycle including innovation, go-to-market, implementation, and software quality-control function.
- Developed branding and cross channel campaigns.
- Managed product quality and setup product performance and usability test labs.
- Implemented a balanced score card and reengineered the organization-wide quality processes.
- Led the CMM 5 certification.
Product Implementation Consultant
1998 - 2000Digite, Inc.- Led the implementation, business analysis, and quality assurance and testing of the product suite.
- Simulated usage scenarios and analyzed user data and insights.
- Led end-to-end testing, conducted performance benchmarking, and performed audits.
- Managed customers solutions design and implementation.
Project Leader
1993 - 1998Toyo Engineering India, Ltd.- Served as a project engineer and managed the project monitoring and control activities of mega-multinational projects.
- Developed computer-based interactive tracking and monitoring system using Primavera.
Darshan Dave
Product Manager in Boston, MA, United States
Member since November 10, 2019
Darshan is a growth architect, a product management specialist, and a digital, CX, and technology strategist. He is a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 CXOs and startups. He has cross-industry experience in growing businesses, products, services, centers of excellence (COE), and incubators from concept to launch. Darshan is highly skilled at incubating products and services, harnessing innovation, leading global cross-functional teams, product management, and solutions marketing.
Darshan is now available for hire
Project Highlights
- Launched many hypergrowth products, generating multimillion dollars of new growth and 45% jump in existing product revenue.
- Oversaw and managed a global product portfolio that included emerging technologies.
- Established and grew the global business to 100+ million and led the new technology consulting business of 250+ million.
Expertise
- Business Solutions
- Executive Presentations
- Growth Strategy
- Leadership
- Product Management
- Product Marketing
- Startup Accelerators
- Technology Solutions
Education
- NICMAR | National Institute of Construction Management and Research
- University of Mumbai
Select Certifications
- IBM
- State Street Corporation
- SPICE
Employment
Project History
- Entrepreneurial Startup Incubator | Launching Successful Hypergrowth ProductsLaunched many hypergrowth products, generating multimillion dollars of new growth and 45% jump in existing product revenue.
I successfully established an entrepreneurial incubator and achieved over $50 million in year one for the next-gen products and increased the existing portfolio revenue by 45%.
• Set up an innovation incubator and harnessed disruptive and emerging technologies, like AI, ML, DLT, RPA, AR, and so on.
• Developed detailed product vision, roadmaps, MVP, R&D, pilots, hypothesis testing, and product specifications.
• Led cross-functional teams and startup squads across UI/UX, development, marketing, sales, and so on.
• Developed a network of partners and a customer advisory council.
• Conducted market research, competition analysis, investments and evaluation validation strategies,
• Led the go-to-market, campaigns, positioning, and storyboarding. - Global Product Management, and Emerging Tech, Product PortfolioOversaw and managed a global product portfolio that included emerging technologies.
I oversaw this project and helped with the leadership, product management, engineering, marketing, sales, product culture, and process.
• Developed and managed the next-generation product portfolio, vision, and roadmaps.
• Established product management practice, industry use cases, and product culture and innovation
• Coached and mentored cross-functional agile engineering, design, and sales teams.
• Led through the full product life-cycle R&D, MVP. prototyping, and so on.
• Oversaw pre-sales, solutions, go-to-market, and customer success - Leadership in Establishing and Growing New Technology BusinessEstablished and grew the global business to 100+ million and led the new technology consulting business of 250+ million.
I provided executive leadership to engineering, sales, and marketing teams.
• Advised the end client, technology optimization, and automation and vendor sourcing strategies.
• Conducted due diligence, assessments, future state roadmaps.
• Provided executive support to strategic and key accounts to grow existing and new business.
• Coached internal technology horizontals, presales, and bid teams. These included build proposals, solutions, and pricing strategies and sales enablement.
• Crafted storyboards, battle cards, and value propositions for products and services.
• Built and set up lean and agile QA CoEs, and services for the digital age.
• Strategized automation, virtualization, DevOps, CI/CD, and an agile transformation.
• Implemented microservices, API, RPA, omnichannel, usability, and security testing.
• Developed and conducted assessment and maturity frameworks.
• Launched new services and product solutions.
• Managed partnerships and alliances.
• Led customer relations and global teams.
Education
- Post-graduate (equivalent to a master's degree) diploma in Management (Computer-based Project Management)1991 - 1993NICMAR | National Institute of Construction Management and Research - Pune, India
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering1987 - 1991University of Mumbai - Mumbai, India
Certifications
- Continuous Product DesignMARCH 2021 - PRESENTQuantum Metric
- Lean Startup for Social GoodJANUARY 2021 - PRESENTIDEOU and Allianz Academy
- Human Centered DesignJANUARY 2021 - PRESENTIDEOU and Allianz Academy
- AI Applications, NLP, Chatbots, Machine VisionNOVEMBER 2020 - PRESENTIBM
- Getting Started with AI and WatsonOCTOBER 2019 - PRESENTIBM
- Digital CatalystSEPTEMBER 2019 - PRESENTState Street Corporation
- Robotic Process Automaiton (RPA)FEBRUARY 2019 - PRESENTUIPath
- Product Management and Marketing StrategyJULY 2015 - PRESENTSPICE
- Uplifting Service LeaderMAY 2014 - PRESENTRon Kaufman
- TOGAF FoundationJANUARY 2014 - PRESENTTOGAF
- Associate of BIJANUARY 2013 - PRESENTBI
- ASTQBJANUARY 2005 - PRESENTQAI
