Geetansh Merani
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Toptal member since April 24, 2020
Geetansh brings nearly a decade of development and Agile expertise to projects for the successful end to end delivery. He is a seasoned project manager who has worked with consumer products, startups, and corporates across eCommerce, telecom, media, and enterprises such as VMware, AirWatch, and Jio. Geetansh has led cross-functional teams with a focus on problem-solving, customer service, and managed products with over 100 million active users.
Project Highlights
Education Highlights
Certification Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Coaching
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
- Customer Support
- Data Monetization
- Digital Project Management
- Google Analytics
- Technical Project Management
Work Experience
Agile Product Manager
Optimize App
- Planned and implemented Agile and Scrum ceremonies for the development team.
- Set up Jira scrum board and project for the team enacting the role of Jira administrator.
- Set up Mixpanel, Google Analytics for product analytics with app events and user profiles.
- Created user cohorts and set up communication channels to reach out to app end-users based on event triggers.
- Conducted Agile and Scrum training sessions for the team and trained developers to be certified as scrum masters.
Product Director
Apertum Online
- Designed and implemented a help desk solution with Chatbot, Zendesk KB, and chat integration to reduce missed customer service requests from 66% to 40% in four weeks.
- Led the development of the SportyBet Fantasy product offering for the African market.
- Managed a team of eight developers and product designers. Acted as Jira administrator and scrum master for the SportyBet help desk and fantasy products.
- Implemented Azure Active Directory for customer service agents and operation agent machines, allowing agents to work out of any office and desk on the company's network.
Technology and Platform Owner (JioPhone)
Reliance Jio Infocomm
- Acted as a technical business owner for all JioPhone models, hardware, operating system, App Store, apps, and new initiatives.
- Led the development of a micro-finance project. Over 4.5 million JioPhone devices were distributed with five million Jio payment bank accounts opened with one activation scheme using micro-financing with Rs. 10,000 crore loan disbursal each year.
- Led technical integration and deployment for the Rajasthan government with over five million devices distributed in under two months. Deployed three government apps on JioStore and the go-live of special Order2Activation journey for the user’s part.
- Managed the release cycle and process deployment of more than 50 apps on the JioPhone Jio Store. Reduced the service level agreement from five days to two days to go live.
- Managed the usage growth of Jio apps on JioPhone, which is currently approximately 106 million users, with average daily active users around 39 million.
- Increased usage from 1.2 million daily active users to 11 million and monthly 40 million users pan India.
- Handled commercial discussions and the agreement closure for JioPhone apps and services offered. Achieved revenue targets of 30+ crore for fiscal year 19-20.
- Managed the release and distribution launch of JioPhone 2 and Jio Media Cable.
- Oversaw relationships with third-party applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Hotstar, ZEE5, and SonyLIV for JioStore on JioPhone.
CTO
BrandTouch & Analytics
- Acted as technical business owner for BrandTouch, Tryy.in, and all BrandTouch properties.
- Set up the IT infrastructure from scratch, including the hardware architecture, the software development process, and the company IT policy.
- Led Tryy.in, set up the POC, and developed the website and mobile web. Led the AWS set up along with code development using Laravel and AngularJS.
- Set up the architecture for the CMS, which included an eCommerce module, logistics, feedback, and analytics.
General Manager - Product and Marketing
Essel Utilities Distribution, Co. Ltd.
- Product-owned the Essel broadband app, a device that creates the digital services ecosystem. This includes the Android, Android TV, and iOS apps.
- Managed integrations across various categories such as app-to-app calling, video/voice, messaging, movies, music, games, live TV, flight and hotel booking, taxi services, healthcare, payments, news, education, dating, shopping, and IoT.
- Collaborated with 24+ alliance partners to integrate the app. These include Google, Amazon, Flipkart, PayU, Oxigen, Hungama Media, PayTM, Pine Labs, BookMyShow, Via.com, Uber, Ola, Spuul, HOOQ, InMobi, and Vserv, amongst others.
- Finalized and brought an app and website development vendor on board, resulting in over 80% savings in the development budget.
- Assisted in the set-top box hardware and software development. Created a one-of-a-kind TV box to convert any television to a Smart TV. Worked with vendors from China to prototype, test, and finalize the device.
Senior Product Manager
CouponDunia Media
- Managed the application with 2,8+ million downloads, over 500,000 monthly active users, and an app rating of 4.4 on the Android Play Store.
- Received the highest ranking of three in the lifestyle category for Android. Featured in the shopping category in the iOS App Store.
- Increased monthly active users from 350,000 to 500,000+ in two months by increasing user engagement.
- Led the revamp of the website and app for the introduction of a retail vertical. Redesigned the complete workflow for the offline vertical. Introduced features such as geo-fencing and mCoupon for CouponDunia with increased results in redemption.
- Oversaw design and wrote functional specifications for both Android and iOS apps. Introduced features to increase app engagement and user retention.
- Acted as the scrum master for the team, improved resource utilization, reduced product backlog, and ensured the team met product release deadlines.
- Analyzed the data on app usage by customers. Made product enhancements based on the data collected.
- Acted as the engineering manager for the app development team–managed the daily functions of the developers, assigning tasks, and managing timelines.
- Collaborated on the last-minute hotel booking app since its inception. Managed the business plan and marketing strategy. Involved with the branding agency on marketing strategy and brand development.
Product Manager
VMware AirWatch
- Implemented Agile methodology and transitioning from TFS to Jira across all R&D teams at AirWatch for a 500+ strong technology team.
- Implemented gamification for myAirWatch suite of portals (integration with Badgeville) for increasing customer engagement.
- Redesigned and implemented a complete support infrastructure for myAirWatch (integration with Zendesk).
- Oversaw the design and wrote functional specifications of products used by more than 6,000 clients. Developers used these functional specifications as a guideline to develop the product.
- Acted as a scrum master for the team. Tasks included improving resource utilization, reducing product backlog, and helping the team meet product release deadlines.
- Product owned SaaSWatch–an array of internal tools to help the SaaS operations team manage more than 200 environments with more than 850,000 devices.
Project History
Agile Implementation for VMware AirWatch
Successfully transitioned a 500+ strong R&D team from Waterfall to the Agile Scrum development process.
• Fulfilled the role of Jira Administrator to set up Jira projects and boards for 20+ development teams.
• Set up the release management process to move from waterfall to scrum development cycle.
• Led the training of 500+ members using the “train the trainer” process.
• Successfully completed Jira and Confluence integration and definition of documentation process.
• Acted as scrum master for the team. Tasks included improving resource utilization, reducing product backlog, and helping the team meet product release deadlines.
• Implemented Planning Poker for story point estimations.
• Led Sprint ceremonies for multiple development teams during transition from TFS to Jira.
Jio App Store - App Release Project for 100+ Million Active Users
Accomplished managing app approval and deployment process for 50+ mobile apps deployed for 100+ million active users.
• Defined and implemented App Store submission and approval process including working with multiple departments like app testing, device testing, app store testing, and monetization teams.
• Successfully launched new and updates for third-party apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Assistant, etc.
• Handled commercial discussions and the agreement closure for JioPhone apps and services offered. Achieved revenue targets of 30+ crore for fiscal year 19-20.
• Reduced the app release time from 15 days to four days post submission to the App Store.
Digital Repayment of Loan Using JioPhone
Led the project for a micro-finance project. Over 4.5 million JioPhone devices were distributed with five million Jio payment bank accounts opened with one activation scheme using micro-financing with Rs. 10,000 crore loan disbursal each year.
• The micro-finance company disburses Rs. 10,000 crore loans to self-help groups across a state in India. They receive weekly repayments in the tune of 200,000 to 600,000 daily in cash.
• The objective was to digitize the repayment process.
• My role was to lead the project through the discovery phase to closure by designing the solution and getting it implemented.
• The solution included integrating the micro-finance systems with a messaging service to remind the user of the pending repayment and a banking solution for the digital repayment of the loan amount.
• The messaging solution integrates with webhooks to perform specific actions for a closed group. It allows for one to many and 1-to-1 messaging privileges supporting different media types such as video, images, and rich text.
• The repayment webhook integrates with a micro-finance banking system, which triggers a message regarding loan repayment.
• The customer clicks the “pay now” option in the message, after which the banking app opens, and the user enters their security pin to complete the transaction.
• Successfully conceptualized and implemented the solution, obtaining a confirmed order for the same from the client.
Education
Master of Science Degree in Information Security
Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Engineering
University of Mumbai - Mumbai, India
Certifications
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF)
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Certified Scrum Product Owner
Scrum Alliance
Skills
Tools
Jira, Google Analytics, Skype, Slack, Confluence, Office 365, TFS
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Agile Project Management, Agile Leadership, Agile Product Management, Test-driven Development (TDD), Planning Poker, Testing
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mixpanel, Azure, Zendesk, Android, iOS, Android TV
Industry Expertise
Data Monetization
Other
Jira Administrator, Agile Coaching, Scrum Master, Scrum Coaching, Scrum Product Owner, Product Analytics, Product Marketing, Go-to-market Plans, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Agile Product Delivery, Freelancing, Project Management, IT Project Management, IT, Technical Project Management, Customer Support, Launch Strategy, Team Leadership, Remote Team Leadership, Mentorship & Coaching, Digital Project Management, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Project Timelines, Project Tracking, Prototyping, Scope of Work (SOW), Leadership, Travel, Project Management Professional (PMP), Stakeholder Management, Project Planning, Software Development, Apps, App Store, Process Flows, Project Discovery, Project Scoping, Implementation, Project Closure, Project Design, Project Reporting, Project Development, Project Delivery, Microsoft Teams, CleverTap, Laravel, AngularJS, Content Management Systems (CMS), eCommerce, Mobile Apps, Chatbots, Integration, Azure Active Directory, Engineering, Information Security
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