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Krishna Venkatraman, Product Manager in Grass Valley, CA, United States
Krishna Venkatraman

Product Manager in Grass Valley, CA, United States

Member since December 20, 2019
For the past 18 years, Krishna has been successfully launching software products in a number of industries as a product manager. He is experienced in applied machine learning, business intelligence, SaaS, mobile apps, IoT, CRM, and ITSM markets, to name a few. Having worked in both startups to Fortune 500 companies, Krishna is well versed in end-to-end product lifecycle management with a highly effective and influential leadership style.
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Project Highlights

Expertise

Education

Select Certifications

Employment

  • Principal

    2017 - PRESENT
    ThreeIron Consulting
    • Focused consultancy on assisting clients with inbound and outbound marketing needs.
    • Served as the product owner, assisting a major healthcare insurance company in the build-out of their NLP-based conversational AI chatbot persona for desktop/mobile. This was created to increase customer engagement for better health and lower costs.
    • Assisted with the design and execution of email marketing programs to propel prospects and customers on their online website journey, including nurturing, onboarding, engagement, purchase, and retention.
    • Assisted the founder of a stealth mode consumer home services marketplace startup with product strategy and go-to-market planning.

  • CTO

    2018 - 2019
    SkyAlert
    • Reported to the CEO and oversaw product strategy, development, and launch. Created a culture of transparency, collaboration, and commitment to excellence across the organization. SkyAlert provides earthquake early warning (EEW) solutions.
    • Drove integration of the US Geological Survey’s Shakealert system into a platform for EEW alert delivery to US customers. Assisted sales in pilots and deal closure. Drove the development of a consumer focused B2C smartphone app.
    • Drove migration to AWS from Azure, re-architected the platform for enhanced scalability and resilience, and drove FCC certification of IoT receivers.
    • Managed a team of 15 developers, UX, QA, IoT hardware, and DevOps engineers in roadmap and product definition, design, and delivery. Developed agile product development processes to support the effective definition and delivery of products.
    • Shipped one major upgrade (rewrite from the ground up) and 12 minor releases to the IoT device software.
    • Drove digital product strategy for desktop and mobile visitors to skyalertusa.com to assist in inbound lead generation programs aimed at both businesses and consumers. Drove website design and copy including blog content.
    • Developed product documentation including installation, administration and user guides for receivers and customer consoles. Wrote product data sheets for administration and customer consoles.

  • VP Product Management

    2016 - 2017
    FusionOps
    • Oversaw product strategy, and drove the definition and delivery of roadmaps for products generating close to $10 million in recurring revenue. FusionOps provides cloud-based machine learning-driven supply chain intelligence solutions.
    • Responsible for three product lines focused on applying machine learning in pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and retail supply chains.
    • Managed a team of five product managers responsible for collaborating with engineering in product delivery.
    • Defined agile processes for release planning and execution in order to support organizational growth and evolution to CI/CD.
    • Shared informal development team oversight with CTO over a 24-person developer, QA, UX, data science, and DevOps team.

  • Senior Director Product Management

    2014 - 2016
    MarkMonitor
    • Served as senior director of product at MarkMonitor, a cloud-based online brand protection solutions vendor.
    • Managed a machine learning-based solution for fighting counterfeiting in apparel, accessories, and shoe verticals. Revenues totaled $2 million.
    • Developed an advanced analysis platform concept with projected first-year sales of $3 million. Patent Pending: “Brand Abuse Monitoring System with Infringement Detection Engine and Graphical User Interface”.
    • Conceived of a machine learning solution for fighting the online sales of fake prescription drugs. Collaborated with engineering, UX, product marketing, and sales to deliver the solution resulting in $1.5 million in first-year revenue.

  • Senior Director, Director, Senior Product Manager

    2005 - 2013
    Actuate Corporation
    • Oversaw product strategy for the open-source Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) project and commercial value-add product line. Owned product licensing, packaging, and server scalability. Led usability studies for all products.
    • Drove the definition of the enterprise mobile apps strategy including application creation, management, distribution, extension services, and app analytics.
    • Assisted in driving the definition and roll-out of BIRT OnDemand, a PaaS solution for BI and reporting in the Cloud. Ensured the deployability of the server into private and public clouds.
    • Built BIRT to among top five most active Eclipse projects. Achieved double-digit growth license revenues each year.
    • Launched two products that delivered $2 million in new revenue. Produced double-digit growth among all four product lines each year. Facilitated tens of millions of dollars in license and product revenues.
    • Improved visibility and downloads among the BIRT community each year by authoring white papers, case studies, newsletters, technical articles, and promotional materials.
    • Increased brand awareness by designing and delivering webinars, promoting the product at international conferences, and contributing content for the top BIRT developer community sites. Built market share to 6% in the first two years.
    • Wire framed v1.0 of BIRT-Exchange.com, the primary community site for BIRT developers; led online marketing such as content SEO and ad-words purchase; early site redesign to support ‘try-and-buy’ self-service sales model for commercial products.
    • Contributed to inbound lead generation by developing/delivering webinars. Co-authored BIRT newsletters and technical articles for various e-zines. Developed data sheets, white papers, case studies, and Actuate BIRT ad copy for online and print media.
    • Built Bass diffusion models to analyze adoption rates of BIRT based on viral marketing plans. Contributed to share-of-voice studies, definition of programs and channel selection to increase product awareness via webcasts, and analyst engagements.

  • VP of Product Strategy

    2011 - 2012
    Esperient PTAV
    • Oversaw product strategy for utilizing CAD data visualization in interactive training use cases. This is a startup utilizing 3D game engine technology for CAD data visualization.
    • Developed product roadmaps and processes to support effective engagements.
    • Assisted in closing deals with large enterprise customers such as SAP, Boeing, and Raytheon.

  • Product Manager

    2002 - 2004
    Remedy A BMC Software Company
    • Pioneered the help desk and customer service automation software. Developed roadmaps and prepared new data-sheets, FAQs, and marketing collateral.
    • Took the Citizen Response and Quality Management products from stagnant sales to $3 million in annual revenue.
    • Designed new product positioning for Remedy's CRM suite of products.

  • Product Manager

    2001 - 2001
    Seaprende
    • Assisted the CEO of this LATAM eLearning startup in defining product strategy and presentations to VC’s leading to the first round of funding of $5 million.
    • Analyzed competitive landscape for the eLearning market in LATAM that included technology providers and content developers.
    • Defined the features and worked with engineering in the development and rollout of the LMS.
    • Assisted in pricing and licensing definition for both the LMS platform and in-house developed content.

  • Principal

    1998 - 2000
    ThreeIron Consulting
    • Assisted SMB’s with business process definition, development, deployment, and operational support automation.
    • Identified optimal business workflow, KPIs, and appropriate resources for workflow implementation.
    • Averaged annual revenues of $500,000 from client engagements.

  • Senior Strategic Accounts Lead, Software Engineer

    1993 - 1998
    Remedy Corporation
    • Contributed to Remedy’s growth from a 55-person early-stage startup through a successful 1995 IPO to 1998 revenue of $158 million with 600 employees.
    • Acted as team lead for Strategic Accounts between 1997 to 1998.
    • Rewarded the Customers' Advocate award for exemplary service to strategic accounts.
    • Led a team of four professionals in managing strategic accounts.
    • Oversaw project as the senior project manager between 1995 to 1997.
    • Streamlined internal licensing, contract renewal, and order entry processes increasing revenue by $6 million.
    • Served as a senior software engineer from 1993 to 1995.
    • Revenues from full-text search products in the first year totaled $5 million.
    • Led feature definition, development, and rollout of a text search product.

  • Staff Software Engineer

    1989 - 1993
    Oracle Corporation
    • Served as a member of the technical staff in the Office Automation Group. Contributed to the development of the GUI for Oracle*Mail.
    • Contributed to the integration with Oracle Office Calendar/Scheduler, Directory Services, and document management.
    • Assisted IT operations in the deployment of Oracle Office, administration, and monitoring.

Project History

  • Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project
    https://www.eclipse.org/birt
    Achieved double-digit growth for license revenues/year. Built BIRT into the top five most popular Eclipse projects.

    Oversaw all product strategy for the BIRT product line: Analytics, mobile, and PaaS. Led the development of product strategies and managed multiple releases. Hired, trained, and supervised a staff of five product managers with an over $1 million budget.

    Achieved double-digit growth for license revenues each year. I drove the definition of the enterprise mobile apps strategy, including application creation, management, distribution, extension services, and app analytics. Built BIRT to among the top five most popular Eclipse projects. Successfully launched two products that delivered $2 million in new revenue and facilitated tens of millions of dollars in license and product revenues.

  • Brand Abuse Monitoring System with Infringement Detection Engine and Graphical User Interface
    Developed an advanced analysis platform concept with projected first-year sales of $10 million. Provisional patent pending.

    Collaborated with customers to identify needs and prioritize requirements. Worked closely with data scientists, UX, developers, services, and sales force.

    Patent pending: "Brand Abuse Monitoring System with Infringement Detection Engine and Graphical User Interface."

    Developed an advanced analytics platform with projected first-year sales of $3 million. Filed a provisional patent ("Automated Identification of High Value Targets from Incidents Online"). Conceived of and collaborated with engineering, data science, and product marketing to deliver a machine learning solution for online brand protection in the pharmaceutical industry that resulted in $1.5 million in first-year revenues—managed a machine learning-based solution for fighting counterfeiting in apparel, accessories, and shoe verticals. Revenues totaled $2 million.

  • Business Process Automation
    Streamlined internal licensing, contract renewal, and order entry processes increasing revenue by $6 million.

    Worked with licensing, contract renewals, and order entry teams to identify opportunities for process improvements, KPI's for operational success, and implemented the KPI's. This effort resulted in increased revenues by $6 million.

  • Conversational AI Chatbot
    Assisted large healthcare insurance provider in the definition and rollout of their NLP-based chatbot for desktop and mobile.

    Assisted a large healthcare insurance provider in the definition and rollout of their NLP-based chatbot persona for desktop and mobile, to increase customer engagement for better health and lower costs. As the product ownerx, I researched the market and competition, identified, planned, prioritized, and defined key features. I developed chatbot utterance similarity tools in Python to enable the definition of new intents and assisted in the migration from the RASA NLP platform to IBM Watson NLP platform. Collaborated with a team of eight onshore/offshore engineers.

Education

  • Master's Degree in Business Administration
    2000 - 2002
    University of California - Berkeley, California, USA
  • Master of Science Degree in Computer Science
    1986 - 1988
    University of Illinois at Chicago - Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering
    1982 - 1986
    Coimbatore Institute of Technology - Coimbatore, India

Certifications

  • Neural Networks and Deep Learning
    AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT
    Coursera
  • Structuring Machine Learning Projects
    AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT
    Coursera
  • Sequence Models
    AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT
    Coursera
  • Improving Deep Neural Networks: Hyperparameter tuning, Regularization and Optimization
    AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT
    Coursera
  • Deep Learning Specialization
    AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT
    Coursera
  • Convolutional Neural Networks
    AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT
    Coursera
  • Product Launch Essentials
    JULY 2013 - PRESENT
    Pragmatic Marketing
  • Effective Product Marketing
    JULY 2013 - PRESENT
    Pragmatic Marketing

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