FRANCIS KURUPACHERIL

Cupertino, CA . (***) *** - 6064 . acsfo7@r.postjobfree.com .

www.linkedin.com/in/frankuru/

STRATEGY, INNOVATION AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

As an innovative product professional focused on the collaboration space, I

provide product direction and strategy based on comprehensive analysis and

market research. I collaborate with stakeholders inside (executives,

engineers, PM's, support etc.) and outside (customers, sales etc.) to build

revenue generating products. I am an expert at product strategy with

competency translating business cases into customer solutions. I solve

specific market problems resulting in increased revenue, improved business

and a winning customer experience. I have a strong engineering background

coupled with patents in the context awareness, video conferencing and

IM&presence domains.

SPECIALIZED SKILLS

Driving product innovation Monitoring development projects Responding to RFP/RFI's

Researching market needs Reviewing support requests Training salespeople

Preparing business cases Planning/managing marketing Performing win/loss

programs analysis

Writing product requirements Crafting use Customer visits & acting

and following them into cases/scenarios/user stories on feedback

backlogs and user stories with details and acceptance

criteria

Writing detailed specifications Creating material for internal Working with

for user stories audiences (intranet, wiki, KB's) press/analysts for

waves/scopes/quadrants

Creating sales presentations Measuring marketing programs Creating material for

training modules and standard using social media and web tools external audiences

demos (videos, blogs, webinars,

newsletters)

PRODUCTS DEVELOPED

1. Jupiter Systems FC45xx, Canvas and CRS-4K

2. Huawei UC3.0 JSR289 container based distributed platform

3. ShoreGear Voice Switches/IP Phones

4. Cisco 5xxx/36xx/26xx voice gateways

5. Cisco H.248 Redundancy with call control module development

6. Cisco PGW with VXSM interoperability

7. Cisco/Lucent interfaces with Cisco H.248 Call control for

Sprint/carrier deployment

8. Cisco MGCP Call control projects for France Telecom, Deutsche

Telekom, and Nippon Telekom.

9. Telocity X20 voice modem

10. ISDN apps for Alcatel S1000

HIGHLIGHTS OF QUALIFICATIONS

. Leading the product management team at Jupiter Systems and releasing the

award winning visualization collaboration solution Canvas alongside the

market disrupting conference room product CRS-4K.

. Led the Huawei UC&C product management Santa Clara and China teams of

senior product managers and product managers to provide market direction

and solution guidance in the form of related strategy analyses and

respective requirements direction. Filed 6 patents in Presence,

Conferencing and Collaboration. Defined next generation UC&C product

(Huawei eSpace UC&C3.0).

. Managed the ShoreTel critical and high priority customers (>$1,000,000

revenue stream). Influenced engineering, product management, channel

partners, OEM vendors and global support in providing pre and post-sales

real time solutions, new products and features, and enhancements for

critical accounts.

. Lead, architected and developed ShoreTel enterprise telephony features.

Responsible for entire code trains from a telephony feature release

perspective. This involved interfacing with product management, quality

and customer teams while maintaining focus on the quality and

marketability of the deliverable. Developed and integrated applications

in C, running under VxWorks RTOS. Developed media (RTP), ISDN

applications and drivers.

. Led the interoperability and scalability solution of Cisco PGW (an in-

house MGC) with the VXSM. This was a milestone effort resulting in

characterizing how well the systems gel. Enabled the BU to sell into

specific markets with the PGW as a soaked solution.

. Managed design team in the transformation of the Telocity DSL modems into

VOIP consumer devices. Designed interfaces across different groups, in

the call control area.

PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Jupiter Systems, Hayward, CA

2014-

Present

Senior Director, Product Management

. Leading the complete product portfolio while reporting to the CEO and

driving product strategy, product definition and product release for all

the product lines. This includes the next generation software solution

Canvas, the video wall controller Fusion Catalyst series and the highly

scalable PixelNet series. And developing products the Agile and Lean

iterative way.

. Increased collaboration revenues 30% by releasing the industry award

winning conference room appliance CRS-4K - the world's first wireless

WebRTC based conference sharing visualization collaboration solution.

. Increased display wall controller revenues 45% by releasing the

innovative FC45xx series of controllers to address the mid and large

segment display categories while using a new supply chain model: using

off the shelf components to build a highly scalable controller series of

products.

Huawei Inc., Santa Clara, CA

2012-2014

Senior Manager, Product Management, Unified Communications and

Collaboration

. Owned and designed the next generation UC3.0 product suite driving it

from customer product requirements definition, to working with strategy,

marketing, business development and engineering architecture teams and

finally back to possible alpha and beta deployments. Also the Global

Spokesperson for the Enterprise UC&C product line which includes the UC,

Telephony, VC and TP suites.

. Collaborated with the UC&C architecture team to deliver product strategy

and business value propositions for innovative architecture and new

product design. Design prototypes and build POC's to further architecture

innovation in unified communications and collaboration. Filed patents and

copyrights to farther related innovation and research projects.

. Trained sales, channels, VAR's and distributors in the current product

suites to enable solution and turnkey product sales in global markets.

Work with the analyst community to respond to product evaluations

(quadrants, waves, scopes etc.) and to elucidate the next generation

product suite with videos and demos.

. Met APAC, LATAM, EMEA and Western European customers to collect new

product requirements and feature enhancement requirements to enable

product evolution and build relationships for post-sales services

opportunities.

Critical Accounts Manager, ShoreTel Inc., Sunnyvale, CA

2006-2012

. Increased revenues 15% by building solution focused relationships with

customers, vendors and VAR's by managing the major accounts.

. Increased cross functional efficiencies 50% with Agile SCRUM and Kanban

processes by implementing a cost-reducing customer support turnaround

process for critical issues.

. Requirements gathering from installed customer base and researching

current market trends to influence product enhancements. Drove new

features, enhancements and critical fixes through specific releases for

major installations.

. Defined process improvements for current CRM, global support and QA

models. Work closely with other organizations within the engineering

realm to constantly improve the product deployment, support and testing

workflow models. Used Agile SCRUM and Waterfall methodologies to monitor

and lead projects performing both product owner and scrum master roles.

. Supported current installations by providing feature support, critical

bug fixes, customer visits, product presentations, and account management

support.

Software Engineer, Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose

2001-2006

. 2002 - 2006: Module Lead for call control projects on MGX-8850 Cisco

Voice Gateway. Led MGCP 1.5MR Project, and led PGW - MGCP - VXSM

integration and performance analyses. Worked on MGCP features for Wired

Voice over IP.

. Provided call control leadership and cross functional glue for multiple

MGCP customer installations. Contributed to RFI and RFP documents which

enabled product marketing to sell into new service provider markets

(Deutsche Telekom, NTT and France Telecom)

. Implemented (on 5x00 Voice Gateway Platform) Voice over IP features,

design and writing 5x00 specific interface layers.

Lead Engineer, Telocity Inc., San Jose, CA

2000-2001

. Accelerated a cross functional, inter-company solutions team to deliver

protocol applications. The MGCP call control component was leveraged from

the Trillium MGCP stack and integrated with the Telocity X20 architecture

to interface with the IpVerse MGC.

Member, Technical Staff, HCL Technologies

1998-2000

. Architected the development lab to enable the remote debugging of

critical issues. Sustained the Cisco voice (36xx, 26xx) platforms with

FXO, FXS, and E&M interfaces.

. Maintained voice solution from HCL, India and was instrumental in growing

the voice development team to 4 engineers.

Design Engine er, Alcatel Chennai Development Centre

1997-1998

. Implemented additional features for the Alcatel A1000 switch resulting in

sustained sales into South American markets.

. Designed regression tests before integrating the features into the code

base.

. Piloted code review effort/inspection. Learned the importance of customer

focused business models for profitability.

EDUCATION

MS - Software Management, 2013, Carnegie Mellon University

MBA - Master of Business Administration, Finance & Strategy, 2010, Leavey

School of Business, Santa Clara University

BE - Bachelors of Computer Science and Engineering, 1997, University of

Madras

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