Shikhin is available for hire
Hire ShikhinShikhin (Shaun) Agarwal
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Location
Washington, DC, United States
Toptal Member Since
March 23, 2020
Shaun has delivered $300+ million in revenue for B2B/B2C platforms. As a C-level product and tech executive, he's worked with boards and executives and with 400+ Global 1000 brands across retail, financial services, travel, auto, etc. He has 22+ years of product management experience in AI/Generative-AI, fintech, sales tech, blockchain/web3.0, and AR/VR. Shaun is excited to take on new business challenges and deliver market success with his transformative leadership style.
Project Highlights
Highly Scalable and Intelligent Digital Product
Launched a new differentiated product to influence the client CEO and executive team, secured $2 million in funding for growth.
$40-million AI-powered Personalization SaaS Platform
Refined the platform strategy for market differentiation and improve customer retention for improved profitability.
Growth Strategy for a Fast-growing Consumer Fintech Market Leader
Refined the growth strategy with cross-functional objectives across brand, content, organic & paid, product, and customer relationship; delivered the product vision and strategy for branding, marketing, and advertising for a €20-million investment.
Expertise
Work Experience
CEO | Product, Go-to-market, and P&L Executive Advisor
2019 - PRESENT
StatsLateral, Inc.
- Secured funding from the CEO and board of a market-leading, profitable SaaS company for a new product; delivered the product vision and strategy, early iterations, differentiation, and positioning with in-depth competitive insights/SWOT analysis.
- Hired and mentored ten people in product, engineering, and product marketing teams. Managed the overall product-business P&L and motivated the teams for R&D/iterations to deliver user value through a differentiated, personalized marketing product.
- Delivered highly optimized and scalable, personalized marketing demand side across multiple platforms such as Google/SEM, video, social media, and mobile for global 500 consumer and business brands for growth acquisition and retention goals.
- Advised the general partner of the venture fund on the product strategy and launched a new mobile consumer product for a healthcare portfolio company.
- Led the chief growth officer strategy of an EU-based B2C company with cross-functional growth marketing, funnel optimization/personalization, customer data-driven growth (CDP and CRM), and product strategy. Achieved a tenfold growth in two years.
- Refined tech, data, and AI strategies with OKRs/KPIs to create a data-driven decision-making culture in the go-to-market teams at a scale-stage US-based company to support 25% YoY growth at $100 million in revenue.
- Acted as the interim chief product officer (CPO) at Cheapoair.com.
- Developed new product strategy and led cross-functional product, marketing, digital, finance, and CX teams/VPs/SVPs of 150+ people to deliver product-market fit for a $100M target market.
Vice President of Product
2018 - 2019
Monetate
- Served as the CPO and executive team member of a VC-funded, profitable martech SaaS products industry leader and reported directly to the CEO.
- Owned the product P&L (six products, one platform), overall product management, vision, strategy, and product marketing.
- Refined the strategy for ad/martech, GDPR, first party data, customer experience optimization/personalization, and marketing performance/ROI.
- Led the go-to-market strategy, platform solutions, pricing, packaging, and user journey to C-level buyers (CMO and chief data or digital officers) for 50% of the customer portfolio.
- Mentored and led teams of six functional leaders (team sizes of 15) for product management, data science, strategy/partnerships, product marketing, and user experience.
- Balanced the future vision with customer/user engagement in collaboration with engineering, marketing, and customer success across North America and Europe to improve customer retention by 10%.
- Launched personalized “eCommerce product recommendations” with an optimized UX in record time—leading the business plan, pricing, packaging, and go-to-market strategy to address a $100-million opportunity.
Co-founder | Chief Product Officer
2016 - 2018
Crowdbabble, Inc.
- Led the tech, product and AI strategy, fundraising, and M&A as growth options to build and execute on the growth hypothesis—delivering multiple acquisition offers to the CEO.
- Secured R&D funding from top-rated investors (IRAP, Toronto) and hired and managed a team of data scientists, product managers, and UX for AI/ML-based intelligent product development.
- Launched marketing/predictive analytics targeting heads of media and marketing strategists for new content types like live video, voice apps, internet of things (IoT), AR/VR, social media, and digital.
- Led and mentored teams for go-to-market and key partnership initiatives in North America to find new data and API partners and supported more than 100% ARR growth across 300 global customers.
Senior Vice President of Product
2015 - 2016
Kinetic Social
- Served as the SVP of product (CPO role) and executive team member, reported directly to the CEO/COO of $50-million SaaS company; led product management, product marketing, strategy, and data science/analytics.
- Successfully managed product P&L and built new SaaS products. Set up a competitive strategy based on a detailed adtech landscape and competitors' analysis and delivered strategic market differentiation.
- Hired, led, and mentored leaders in product management, data science, user experience, product marketing, and partner management for over $30 million of product growth and $200 million of media buying.
- Led the product build, buying, and partner strategy with the CEO.
- Achieved market differentiation as a highly scalable social media demand-side platform, intelligent bidding and optimization, measurement/attribution, and performance marketing (conversion or bottom of the funnel).
- Influenced client partners and PMs at Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google DoubleClick, AppNexus, and more to drive adtech innovation and support 80% YOY growth.
- Established thought leadership in the market and launched new products for branded content performance and marketing performance analytics and measurement.
- Acquired two companies to extend products into marketing analytics and measurement and building an audience data platform for intent and behavior.
Director of Product Marketing and Strategy
2012 - 2014
Primatics Financial
- Reported to the co-founder and chief revenue officer; the company was acquired ($122 million) for its growth in banking, mortgage, and lending industry.
- Led a global team of ten people for creating the product, brand, and market strategy and new CIO/CFO solutions, including identifying new use cases, value proposition, and roadmaps to achieve revenue growth of $10 million.
- Managed the cloud-based Evolv platform (SOA-based, RESTful APIs) through A/B testing and user/market needs analysis and prioritization in an agile methodology across global cross-functional teams of architects, engineers, and subject-matter experts.
- Managed P&L for two new products (risk, accounting)—leveraging the platform to solve challenges in the financial services industry to win ~10% market share in the total target market of $300 million.
Product Strategy Leader
2012 - 2012
Morgan Stanley
- Consulted with Morgan Stanley to work directly with product heads across Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
- Reduced advisor/client loss and improved retention by 10% through an effective operating strategy for field and client communication for Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney JV in collaboration with product managers, operations, and sales/advisors.
- Managed a joint venture product integration and nationwide roll out to over 3,000 financial advisors, generated user feedback, and improved product roadmap and prioritization to achieve over 90% user retention.
Strategy Manager (New Solutions)
2008 - 2011
Cognizant Tech
- Led a new product/solution launch as part of the strategy and innovation group under the leadership of former senior professionals from McKinsey, Booz & Co, and AT Kearney.
- Delivered a new CRM and operations data-analytics strategy, positioning, and market segmentation to receive buy-in from the CFO and SVP of strategy and tap a potential new market of $50 million.
- Led teams of strategy managers, subject-matter experts, and tech architects to refine a new business strategy for market entry into cloud, mobile, and big data.
Product Manager
2005 - 2006
Yodlee, Inc.
- Directly worked with web analytics, UX, and engineering and reported to the director of products; Yodlee was a web-based consumer and B2B product company with clients such as ING, JPMorgan, Bank of America, and so on (the company was acquired).
- Managed and launched the next-gen of innovative features (dashboard, financial calendar, search) for Yodlee.com using agile, A/B testing, and user research to iterate and grow customer engagement by 10% and revenue by $10 million.
- Supported a B2B SaaS go-to-market strategy for global banks and financial institutions with a consumer-subscribed freemium model and paid premium products for B2B buyers.
Product Manager
2002 - 2005
Tavant Tech
- Hired as the first product manager in the company. Tavant was a B2B product startup that grew from 40 to 1000 employees in three years and was eventually acquired.
- Defined a new B2B web-based after-sale service product with detailed product specifications (PRDs) and technical designs using the agile methodology and leveraging the proprietary Tavant platform.
- Led mortgage and consumer lending (auto) products for user needs and innovation through storyboarding, research and use case development to contribute $15 million in revenue.
Founder | CEO
2000 - 2002
CoolCrafters
- Raised $300,000 in seed capital in the post-dot-com era for an internet tech startup that provided eCommerce and internet marketing products for the SMB market.
- Built a business of $180,000 in revenue with 15 people in two years of operations.
- Wore multiple hats but primarily contributed to client success as a full-stack engineering tech lead and product manager.
Project History
Highly Scalable and Intelligent Digital Product
Launched a new differentiated product to influence the client CEO and executive team, secured $2 million in funding for growth.
• Set the product strategy and vision with deep user research on challenges of inefficiency, slow/non-scalable video/digital marketing solutions and in-depth competitive insights, and SWOT analysis for market differentiation.
• Launched a new AI-powered product and leveraged the Internet marketing ecosystem/APIs to build the first-of-its-kind intelligent, automated, and scalable customer acquisition product.
• Integrated the product strategy by establishing business relationships with the right client/partners to access data and clients (large brands) and validated the product-market fit.
• Led product R&D/development and product growth/marketing to build truly differentiated capabilities to establish user value and secure long-term commitment/funding from the client's executive team.
• Launched a new AI-powered product and leveraged the Internet marketing ecosystem/APIs to build the first-of-its-kind intelligent, automated, and scalable customer acquisition product.
• Integrated the product strategy by establishing business relationships with the right client/partners to access data and clients (large brands) and validated the product-market fit.
• Led product R&D/development and product growth/marketing to build truly differentiated capabilities to establish user value and secure long-term commitment/funding from the client's executive team.
$40-million AI-powered Personalization SaaS Platform
https://monetate.com/personalization-engine/recommendations/Refined the platform strategy for market differentiation and improve customer retention for improved profitability.
As the core AI products lost differentiation, the company needed a new product vision and platform strategy to inspire the teams for the future. I realigned the go-to-market and product marketing strategy for the customer experience personalization platform and six products for value realization across the buyers' journey.
The new innovations leveraged AI to address new big market changes—GDPR and CCPA. He led first-party/customer data and customer experience platform to improve client profitability and achieve customer retention targets of over 90%.
This required me to balance the future vision with the customer/user engagement in cross-functional collaboration with engineering, marketing, and customer success across North America and Europe.
I leveraged the agile methodology to launch an intelligent personalized "product recommendations" SaaS product with an optimized UX in record time and led the business plan, pricing, packaging, and go-to-market strategy to address a $100-million growth opportunity.
The new innovations leveraged AI to address new big market changes—GDPR and CCPA. He led first-party/customer data and customer experience platform to improve client profitability and achieve customer retention targets of over 90%.
This required me to balance the future vision with the customer/user engagement in cross-functional collaboration with engineering, marketing, and customer success across North America and Europe.
I leveraged the agile methodology to launch an intelligent personalized "product recommendations" SaaS product with an optimized UX in record time and led the business plan, pricing, packaging, and go-to-market strategy to address a $100-million growth opportunity.
Growth Strategy for a Fast-growing Consumer Fintech Market Leader
Refined the growth strategy with cross-functional objectives across brand, content, organic & paid, product, and customer relationship; delivered the product vision and strategy for branding, marketing, and advertising for a €20-million investment.
• Refined the growth strategy with their chief growth officer (CGO) to achieve cross-functional objectives of sustainable and profitable growth (lifetime value—LTV maximization), targeting millions of consumers
• Created the product vision, strategy, and roadmap to deliver the growth strategy by leveraging the broad and complex ecosystem of digital tech, web, mobile, and data/AI.
• Delivered C-level decisions on investment and talent requirements, evaluations of different strategic choices (business cases), and long term growth insights for an annual budget of over €10 million.
• Influenced teams on strategy and metrics for brand/content marketing, acquisition, and retention as core pillars of sustainable and profitable growth throughout the customer lifecycle.
• Created the product vision, strategy, and roadmap to deliver the growth strategy by leveraging the broad and complex ecosystem of digital tech, web, mobile, and data/AI.
• Delivered C-level decisions on investment and talent requirements, evaluations of different strategic choices (business cases), and long term growth insights for an annual budget of over €10 million.
• Influenced teams on strategy and metrics for brand/content marketing, acquisition, and retention as core pillars of sustainable and profitable growth throughout the customer lifecycle.
Education
2006 - 2008
Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Strategy and Entrepreneurship
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI, USA
1995 - 1999
Bachelor of Technology Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
IIT Bombay | Indian Institute of Technology Bombay - Mumbai, India
Certifications
JANUARY 2014 - PRESENT
Strategic Selling
Miller Heiman
DECEMBER 2012 - PRESENT
Pragmatic Marketing
Pragmatic Marketing