Vijay Akula

**** ***** *****, ***************, ** 60110 847-***-**** ad2g4t@r.postjobfree.com www.linkedin.com/in/vjakula

Senior Digital Product Manager

Seasoned expert in driving enterprise-wide information technology products development, delivery and support for various business stakeholders across the entire company and several affiliates. Proven track record in partnering across various levels of business partners among various lines of business domains to deliver technical solutions that has accelerated the adoption and maturity of the company’s business initiatives. IT industry experience and strong leadership capabilities with strategic product vision, product discovery and roadmaps to maximize the customer and enterprise value provided by the product. Highly skilled in managing and coaching staff and team development across the globe. Executive leadership communications, strategy development and execution are a plus along with strong analytical and problem-solving skills, technical background and thought leadership. Strong project delivery and management track record using Agile methodologies (JIRA, Version1 tools). Extensive knowledge of various project delivery methodologies and frameworks like Agile/Scrum/XP, DevOps & Quality Assurance processes. Proficient in vendor management, budget management, change management, risk management and project management.

Expertise

Atlassian Tools/Capabilities: JIRA Confluence and other plug-ins ScriptRunner for Jira Structure eazyBI Advanced Roadmaps Jira Service Management Confluence Bitbucket Automation Rules Migrations and Consolidations.

GRC Tools: Archer, TR-eGRC, MetricStream, TeamMate+

Agile Tools: JIRA VersionOne.

ITSM Tools: ServiceNow BarometerIT.

Software Methodologies & Database: SDLC Agile Waterfall Oracle SQL Server PL/SQL.

BI Tools: Tableau PowerBI.

Integration Tools: CICD platforms Jenkins.

Office Suite: Word Excel Outlook Teams SharePoint PowerPoint, and Visio

Other Platforms/Tools: SaaS/PaaS/CaaS, AWS, Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) SaaS Apigee Java Stack NodeJS React.

Experience

Allstate Insurance Company, Northbrook IL 2001 – 2023

Senior Digital Product Owner 2009 – 2023

Managed and successfully deployed critical information technology initiatives for the Allstate enterprise insurance domain along with their family of companies.

Spearheaded the complete end-end implementation of Enterprise Regulatory Compliance, Operational Risk & Return Management, SOX, Business Continuity, Privacy & Model Risk capabilities in the Archer GRC product for the enterprise and its family of companies.

It was a multi-year effort executing the enterprise risk strategy that included business partners and SMEs across the enterprise. The effort has saved significant costs (~$2M), improved operational efficiencies (saved 5 FTEs), effective compliance management, better measurement and risk monitoring capabilities and effective board reporting etc.

Implemented enterprise-wide initiative to on-board various business entities onto the digital eSignature and eNotary capabilities leveraging vendor solutions. The initiative has tremendously improved data quality and eliminated inefficiencies while saving costs. Led the consolidation of various digital signature solutions into the enterprise strategic partner solution.

Product steward for several vended on-prem solutions; managed contract negotiations, vendor relationship management, development team coaching, product lifecycle management.

Developed, maintained and executed enterprise GRC strategy. Partnered with various business stakeholders and officers to help understand the benefits of implementation a GRC solution.

Architected and implemented GRC Council with memberships from CISOs, Officers and SMEs across the enterprise.

Design thinking, prototype, proof of concept, solution design methods have been leveraged to convert and business requirements into technical capabilities.

Agile methodology with multiple scrum teams have enabled faster and efficient delivery with good quality and under budget.

Experienced in managing multiple scrum/kanban teams/boards, conducting agile ceremonies and velocity trending reporting to the leadership.

Successfully managed enterprise-wide portfolio of 20+ products supporting Tax, Internal Audit, ITSM, Continuous Improvement and various other business partners.

Coaching and mentoring a team of resources across the globe. Ensuring skill development, talent management & performance assessments are completed timely.

Architect/Product Engineer 2006 – 2009

High-level knowledge of the system design architecture to facilitate discussions needed for systematic updates to technical components, that deliver key functionalities to the users.

Instrumental in various projects with strategic decision-making aligning to enterprise technology frameworks and architecture guidelines.

Part of the decision-making committee to evaluate and implement vended solutions in the company; risk assessment, privacy assessment, regulatory compliance etc.

Involved in Infrastructure management, total cost of ownership reduction, availability for a wide portfolio of applications across the enterprise.

Led several design thinking sessions to deliver customer/user facing solutions for the enterprise. Proof of Concept and Rapid Delivery are the key ideals used in the process.

Developed several KPIs for products and was responsible for tracking and reporting to the senior leaders in the department.

Product Engineer/Sr. Programmer Analyst 2001 – 2006

Played a significant role in delivering the products with special attention to quality throughout the complete development life cycle including requirements gathering, functionality mapping, fit gap analysis, design sessions, configuration and testing.

Worked extensively with the sourcing team. Responsibilities included providing guidance to ensure corporate policy adherence. Performance and relationship monitoring and management.

Developed Technology Landscape Roadmap defining a product simplification strategy for migrating legacy solutions to strategic platforms. Responsibilities included, authoring the processes and standards for architectural blueprint strategy.

Education

Master of Science (MS) Computers and Electrical Engineering

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI

Bachelor of Science (BS) Electronics and Communications Engineering

Bengaluru, India

Training

Outcome Based Delivery

oSystems Thinking

oAgile Mindset

oLean Experimentation

oDesign Thinking

oBusiness Case Development

Creating High Performance Culture

Coaching for Results

Creating a Coaching Culture

Leading with Innovation

Strategic Planning Foundations

Managing a Multigenerational Workforce

Strategic Thinking

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