Independent Program Management Consultant
2021 - PRESENTForbes Global 30 Automotive Company- Provided program management leadership to several cyber and vehicle security initiatives at one of the world's leading automotive companies' research institutes and advanced development divisions.
- Set up the governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) framework and tool for company-wide information security GRC activities.
- Set up a company-wide vendor security and privacy assessment framework to vet more than 5,000 vendors from an information security and privacy point of view.
- Planned operations for the security assurance function of the cyber and vehicle security division.
Independent Program Management Consultant
2021 - 2021Forbes Global 2000 Asia-Pacific Energy Company- Provided end-to-end agile leadership and coaching to R&D specialists, developers, and other stakeholders across multiple teams and divisions on their existing R&D projects, mainly in the electric vehicle space.
- Launched a scalable three-wheeler electric vehicle platform for OEMs.
- Achieved several vehicle model designs passing in the first go through government and independent testing authorities, including the Thai Automotive Institute.
Independent Project Management Consultant
2020 - 2021Fortune 100 North American Construction Equipment Manufacturer- Provided agile coaching and leadership to a globally dispersed and high-performance team in building a mission-critical SaaS product with an SLA of 99.7% availability with 1.5 million parts, 2M graphics, and thousands of parts and service documents.
- Set up large-scale Scrum (LeSS) to successfully deliver the company's first cloud-based mission-critical SaaS platform.
- Coached the team to achieve a "regular" cadence and a reputation for quality and on-time delivery.
VP of Engineering
2016 - 2020BlueEast- Oversaw and was in charge of the strategic planning and alignment across the engineering teams to meet organizational goals.
- Handled the execution at the portfolio level and drove new product development planning.
- Acted as a program manager for key-cross functional initiatives within the software, hardware, firmware, data sciences, user experience, and technical sales.
- Supported the engineering group tasks daily related to handling portfolio completion, reporting, highlighting critical issues and exceptions, joining scrum and team meetings, and training and mentoring teams to assure project delivery.
- Owned the maturing of tools, methods, and techniques for improving process and team performance.
- Planned organizational development activities like training programs, new joiner inductions, workshops, and meetings.
- Handled and delivered critical program deliverables to assure the delivery of highly visible cross-functional programs.
- Managed the manufacturing, supply chain, outsourcing partnership, and contract.
Director of Projects — Hardware Engineering
2015 - 2016Powersoft Nineteen- Led, developed, and supported the hardware engineering division.
- Owned the P&L performance of the hardware engineering division as an independent business unit.
- Helped several clients to increase profits through design for cost and value engineering programs.
- Led the “Smaller, Better, Faster” initiative to provide best-in-class hardware engineering services.
- Won several key accounts for hardware engineering in Silicon Valley, CA, US.
Program Manager
2011 - 2014Powersoft Nineteen- Owned the process of bringing synergies to life for talented people from electrical engineering, firmware development, electronic packaging, CAD and CAM engineering, manufacturing, materials, certifications, and project management.
- Led the development of electrical and mechanical specifications, hardware-firmware co-development, design reviews, certification-oriented hardware development, EMC testing, regulatory certifications, and reliability engineering activities.
- Won several key accounts for hardware engineering in Europe and the Asia Pacific.
- Simultaneously ran multiple product development projects for ten clients across five time zones.
- Led several product development projects, which resulted in multimillion-dollar acquisitions and venture capital funding.
- Managed projects, engineering, talents, and contracts.
- Developed hardware, software, and embedded systems.
Project Manager
2009 - 2011Powersoft Nineteen- Established the hardware engineering division at Powersoft Nineteen with services covering electrical engineering, PCB design, computer-aided design and machining, electronic packaging, supply chain, and contract manufacturing services.
- Attracted, trained, and retained young, energetic talent for hardware engineering services.
- Developed a hardware design process compliant with international, industrial, and aerospace standards like ISO9000, EN61508, and DO254.
- Built a reputation of “right-the-first-time” and released several design projects where the prototype went straight into production as Rev A.
- Worked with various clients, including Cattron Group International, Laird Technologies, Industrial Scientific, RailComm, Varentec, Integrated Devices Technology, Circuit Pro Solutions, and JAVAD EMS Software.
- Managed engineers, talents, contracts, and offshore teams.
- Engineered electronics, hardware, software, and embedded systems.
Co-founder
2007 - 2008Signals and Systems- Built a state-of-the-art automotive HVAC system maintenance equipment for BMW.
- Constructed a customized fire-&-gas hazard alarm for AES Lalpir Power Plant.
- Learned sophisticated techniques and “street-level” smarts to run business.
- Created unique transformational hardware engineering outsourcing models with low development costs.
Project Leader
2005 - 2007Whizz Systems, Inc.- Led an offshore multidiscipline design team on high-speed/high-density (multi-layer) PCB layout projects for Whizz Systems Inc, Santa Clara, CA, USA.
- Delivered several highly complex electrical and mechanical constraint-driven designs.
- Gained expertise in designs requiring 100% manual routing, impedance controlled stacks, GB/s interfaces, high-density interconnects (>26 layers, blind, buried, micro vias) and packaging (200+ pins/square inch, PTH, SMT, mixed).
- Worked on highly challenging projects included strict SI, EMC, DFM, DFA, DFT and tight time-to-market requirements along with pressure cooker situations.
- Worked with key clients including Cisco Systems, Xilinx, Foundry Networks, Phillips, NXP Semiconductors, HP, Pillar Data Systems, Apple, IBM, Intel, Zultys, and so on.
- Managed projects and various teams (including offshore ones).
- Communicated with clients and engineered hardware.
R&D Engineer
2003 - 2005Dancom Group- Primarily researched and developed payphone solutions.
- Released several payphone solutions under the “CALL POINT” brand with more than 2,000 installations all over Pakistan.
- Mainly focused on electronic and electromechanical designs, new product introduction, field troubleshooting, co-ordinating with manufacturing, and implementing root cause failure analysis in field trials.