Akshay Rana

Product Consulting

2024 - Present

UpWork Freelance Projects, London, UK

• Debt Relief AI Copilot Conducted competitive research for debt relief products, reimagined the data collection experience using an AI Copilot, implemented using Microsoft Copilot
• Attorney Case Referral Product Conducted competitive analysis and developed product requirement documents (PRDs), user journey maps, and 50+ user stories for a US-based case referral product, enabling efficient development by UI/UX teams.
• Mind Your Business Formulated product roadmap, conducted in-depth interviews and ethnographic studies, delivered a product strategy to utilize a development budget of £300,000

Senior Product Manager

2020 - 2023

Lowe's Services India Pvt. Ltd., Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Led Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM) and Cybersecurity product verticals for Lowe’s desktop and mobile platforms by collaborating cross-functionally across business, design, and technology teams, guiding two teams of 21 engineers.

• Created Cybersecurity Product Roadmap and launched Multifactor Authentication, Google reCAPTCHA, and other products, leading to a 30% reduction in fraud online chargebacks, saving £3.5M annually
• Designed and delivered ‘Quick signup during Checkout’ on Lowes Desktop app to allow for better identification of customers and management of account creation processes, potentially generating revenue of over $500M annually from 4M new users
• Led the development of Adaptive Fraud Detection service, leading cross-departmental collaboration and external negotiations, integrating NuData (Mastercard) with IAM systems, preventing over 100,000+ account takeover attempts per week
• Outlined and designed Login with OTP and simplified Registration experience for new and returning users, introducing a completely re-imagined product, achieving 5% increase in successful signup and 15% increase in successful logins
• Pioneered Omni-channel strategy for Lowe’s by creating online on-boarding experience for non-digital store customers, introducing onboarding using QR code, resulting in +75K monthly new account registrations and over $18M in monthly sales
• Orchestrated digital transformation from IBM WCS monolithic architecture to Google Cloud Platform for owned product verticals, resulting in multiple product deployment cycles per week instead of fortnightly deployments

Product Manager

2019 - 2020

Drivezy India Travels Pvt. Ltd., Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Owned product development and process improvement for maintenance of a PAN India fleet comprising of 11,000+ two-wheelers and 4,000+ four-wheelers across 34 booking centres in 11 cities

• Partnered with 20+ service centres to launch the company’s moon-shot product, Vendor App, for tracking vehicle service; led the digital transformation of the service tracking process, bringing down the turnaround time for vehicle service from 7 to 3 days
• Authored Product Roadmap for vehicle maintenance, highlighting use of automation, Artificial Intelligence and improved data pipelines, to move from reactive maintenance to predictive maintence; the implementation was postponed due to COVID
• Pioneered company's foray into keyless vehicles, led proof of concept with 50 bikes, launched the product in Bengaluru
• Spearheaded product development for Franchise Business consisting of 21+ licensees, streamlined on-boarding processes, implemented performance measurement systems consisting of relevant business KPIs, leading to objective performance reviews

Co-Founder & Product Lead

2017 - 2019

Neo Software Labs Pvt. Ltd., Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

A digital products startup; launched an AI-based content-discovery platform, Preadr, for career development space. Selected by Economic Times as one of the top 100 ventures at Power of Ideas 2018, India's most prestigious startup competition

• Launched an AI-based content-discovery platform, Preadr, that gained over 1200+ users, 20,000+ page views per month
• Mentored a team of 12 engineers, marketers and designers; launched the first version of the product in 4 months
• Partnered with prominent test preparation centres in India and launched a weekly newsletter service; created APIs to distribute verified content and powered blogs for other business clients
• Led fundraising efforts, reached final stages of raising angel investment from leading VC firm in India; the deal did not go through
• Launched, xMarketer, a customer engagement and messaging tool that generated over $60K in revenue from over 400 new users for another company

Assistant Systems Engineer

2016 - 2017

Tata Consultancy Services, New Delhi, India

• Oversaw network security and encryption for 4,000 employees in the APAC region, for a Fortune 500 client based in the US
• Collaborated with a multinational team to lead responses for security threats, enabling clients to function without bottlenecks
• Mentored engineers, created training material for new recruits, brought down integration time from 4 to 2 weeks

Master of Business Administration

2023 - Present

Durham University Business School, Durham, United Kingdom

• Implemented AI/ML classification, and clustering models to perform sentiment analysis on Spotify Appstore reviews and sales data of an organization for customer segmentation insights
• Partnered with a BBC Guest Speaker on AI and Cybersecurity as a pro-bono consultant to analyse fraud in Insurance industry due to deepfake technology, delivering a digitization strategy for workshops to prevent fraud
• Won CGI Consulting case competition by presenting a proposal to improve internet connectivity for a major UK train company

Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering

2011 - 2015

Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala, Punjab, India

Joint Secretary, Adventure Club, Led treks to Indrahar Pass, Chanderkhani Pass, Parashar Lake, Hatu Peak, and various other peaks across North India. Handled the purchase of Adventure Equipment worth $1,500, enabling the club to become self-reliant during expeditions.

• Volunteer Experience: Village Audit Program, Madhya Pradesh, helped economically challenged households in rural India, advising them about wage schemes by the Government and facilitating their employment, 2017
• Entrepreneurial Experience: Founder, FoolHardy, a travel platform for activity-based trips; generated over $30K in revenues from 1000+ customers, 2014
• Extra-curricular Experience: Received an 'A Grade' in a State Level Certificate course in Rock Climbing and Mountaineering, 2013