Product Manager

Malik Panjwani, PMP

********.*****@*****.*** 210-***-**** https://www.linkedin.com/in/malikmp/

A Product Manager with over 15 years of experience in banking, payments modernization, regulatory compliance, FinTech, and identity management. Developed products based on assessments of the competitive environment, industry trends, and market segments. Adept at conducting research to identify patterns in uncertain environments & develop strategy for a sustainable ecosystem of products leading to a viable source of revenue. Worked on projects/roles in India, Canada, UK, USA, and South Africa.

Professional Experience

Consultant - Product Management

USAA Federal Savings Bank (deputation through Pyramid Consulting) (San Antonio, TX) Jul 2022 – till date

Currently working for the Enterprise Data and Analytics Office in: (a) establishing the foundation ETL for running data quality testing, (b) automating daily/weekly BAU tasks for Consistency and Accuracy testing, (c) enabling Mainframe to Source of Record (SOR) mapping to compare & support data migration efforts, (d) assisting the Data Science teams at Enterprise Contact Center to improve collection, processing, and analysis of transactional data with the goal of improving member experience & optimizing call center performance.

Worked on features to overcome deficiencies in the Bank’s AML compliance program thereby meeting deficiencies as required by the Consent Order.

Worked on the development of a Fortuna Dashboard to capture SLOs for critical experiences in order to discover gaps and assist in creating a plan for improvements.

Assisted on a strategy to establish a robust (ongoing) transaction monitoring program and explore integration with other companies (like Actimize) for a more advanced transaction monitoring mechanism and integration with the Bank’s core db for further analytics in combination with other legacy platforms.

Translated features into user stories within the team’s backlog while managing, ranking, and prioritizing this backlog to reflect stakeholder’s requirements.

Actively participate in all Agile Ceremonies - Inspect & Adapt sessions, Program Increment Planning, and Iteration/PI Review. Co-lead the stand up, grooming, planning, and retrospective.

Associate Consultant – Product Management

PPL Corporation (deputation through HCL Technologies) (Allentown, PA) Oct 2021 – Jul 2022

Developed the Sky product roadmap in collaboration with stakeholders across the company.

Worked on the design and development of an interactive outage tool to enable ground staff access real time information on the complexity of the outage and possible solutions to correct the same.

Worked on the development of a tool to analyze user interaction with widgets. Integration with PowerBI to generate dashboard, customize charts, and gain actionable insights.

Worked at all levels of the release process: Design, Engineering, QA, and Marketing. Draft comprehensive business, technical, and functional requirements. Worked with team in the stakeholder demo of feature rollouts.

Product Manager - Emerging Technology Group

Trulioo (Vancouver, Canada) Nov 2020 – Oct 2021

Experience in building products for one of the world’s leading identity verification platforms, enabling instant biometrics based authentication of 5 billion+ people across 100+ countries. Own the B2B product vision and its implementation. Undertake market/competition research initiatives, draft product strategy, worked on tier based pricing strategy, and identify new growth opportunities which aligns with the company goals & objectives.

Led the development of an orchestration layer to offer multiple products over a single API.

Worked on Data Insights (Analytics) module that provides actionable information to enable customers make informed decisions. Beta phase used by 7 clients with an eventual plan to roll out to >300 institutional clients.

Co-authored a fraud strategy to set direction for future product rollouts. Led the design and integration of a Risk module enabling digital fingerprints to be used for determining and eliminating risk factors with flexibility to customize as per the client’s risk appetite. Used by >300 institutional clients.

Conduct client interviews with UX researcher to create the best user persona thereby retaining existing relationships and provide a seamless frontend experience to new customers.

Evaluate potential synergies and post-integration considerations. Reduce friction throughout the client journey by leveraging Salesforce specifically to reduce dual onboarding efforts from the client side.

Worked on a niche project to auto-recycle API key and communicate the same to clients via a secured channel. It enabled clients to control the frequency of recycling API key.

Worked at all levels of the release process: Design, Engineering, QA, and Marketing. Draft comprehensive business, technical, and functional requirements. Closely collaborate with scrum master for burnup/burndown.

Product Manager - Product Innovation & Technology Group

ICICI Bank Canada (Toronto, Canada) Sep 2012 – Nov 2020

Envision and outline solution concepts to opportunities or gaps. Develop strategy, fueled by market research and data, to design self-sustaining products. Create sustainable monetization models, manage tradeoffs, deliberate build-vs-buy options, and conduct cost-benefit/gap analysis. Build consensus with stakeholders – Legal, Risk, Compliance, engineering, operations, audit, corporate security, and sales. Own and manage product roadmap in an agile framework. Established key performance indicators (KPIs). Draft the product literature highlighting product features, benefits, and, pricing. Create product positioning & pricing strategy and go-to-market plans.

Led the development of a Student GIC Program with income of over $18 million and more than 100,000 clients. Launched product variants for clients from 12 countries. Customized variants for subsidiaries in 3 countries.

Managed the concept-to-launch of an online e-commerce solution (for Schools & Universities) enabling real-time transactions. Expanded it across 3 subsidiaries. Onboarded 16 institutional clients with business of >$1 mn in the first quarter. The platform enabled online Card payments through an API enabled 3rd party settlement

Led the development of cross-border payments product. Set-up Nostro relationships in new countries. Year over Year increase of 18% in business to $200 million. Led the integration project with Ripple.

Worked on the requirements of SOX risk, Fraud, and Compliance teams where new Nostro relationships were set up. Led the Montran integration project.

Maintained and refined product backlog. Created user stories and acceptance criteria and prioritized stories to ensure work focuses on those with maximum business value that align with product strategy. Led sprint and grooming sessions. Managed development of API integrations & UI designs. Define MVP & set release dates.

Developed a localized EFT enabled payment product for institutional clients. Mobilized deposits worth >$16 million in its first year & fee income of approx. $60,000.

Led the integration of web+mobile Interac E-Transfer. First year fee income of app. $295,000.

Co-led the development of a BNPL product to offer loans at Point of Sale. Launched a product variant to offer loans to subprime customers.

Determined solution feasibility and design new feature architectures to improve user experience & reduce cost. Led the automation of KYC triggers (to meet compliance needs) leading to a cost reduction of app. $450,000.

Established product vision, life-cycle, & prioritization. Create wireframes & proof-of-concepts. Conduct UAT – test case creation and execution. Manage backlogs. Develop project charter and workflow diagrams. Run beta & pilot program with early-stage platform build.

Led on the ideation sessions to launch a foreign currency (INR) prepaid Visa card in the Canadian market.

Launched the consumer bill payment product – including setting up agreement with Telpay, establishing the funding and operations process, and meeting the LRC requirements. Product used by 150,000+ customers.

Led the development of a mobile banking app with functionalities to complete secure digital transactions including international/domestic money transfers, Remote Deposit Capture (e-cheque), and consumer bill payment. Reduced retail client onboarding time in half by integrating a facial-recognition API for KYC.

Provide compliance & risk impact assessments to existing product features and functionalities. Identify, document, and establish controls for SOX risk categories (operational, legal, reputational, compliance, liquidity and finance risk) of new products & solutions. Conduct quarterly/monthly reviews with various controls groups.

Developed sales strategies; manage pricing criteria and commercialization activities. Forecast performance by analyzing unstructured data, channel usage trends, and economic environment. Investigate variations, identify roadblocks & launch segmented marketing campaigns. Monitor profitability and viability of the products.

Established strategic roadmaps and drive key aspects of data management (acquisition, standardization, and enrichment) to provide end-to-end data reporting, analytical, and data visualization capabilities.

Analyzed call center statistics to understand customer pain points, to discover potential markets/new products, and to identify factors affecting product demand. Monitor operations of existing products & drive automation.

Private Banker (RM-Wealth Management)

ICICI Bank South Africa Representative Office (Johannesburg, South Africa) Oct 2010 – Aug 2012

Managed private banking client portfolio with a combined AUM of approx. $40 million and containing products like derivative based structured deposits, notes, bonds, CIS, offshore mutual funds, and private equity funds.

Created strategies to develop & expand product offerings. Addition of 24 new PB clients - book of ~$16 mn.

Assisted in the development of a derivative valuation model with real-time feeds from Bloomberg.

Determine client eligibility based on multiple factors viz, networth, booking center, age, time horizon, nationality & risk appetite before offering investment products. Develop product literature for client consumption.

Stay abreast with offshore investment rules in the legal and regulatory environment for Structured products

Focused on unique content, first to market information, and insightful analysis to source additional business.

Co-led the setup of a compliance matrix to determine product eligibility which enabled RMs to offer derivative based instruments that meets client’s tolerance levels.

Operations Manager (Wealth Management and Retail Banking)

ICICI Bank Limited (Mumbai, India) Mar 2004 – Oct 2010

Managed a team of 29 professionals responsible for the overall functioning of processes outsourced from offices in UK, US, Canada, Singapore (Wealth Management business), Bahrain, Sri Lanka, and Russia. Led the process centralization efforts to reduce costs.

Led the automation of reconciliation and treasury deal reporting processes. Led six-sigma, time-motion study.

Led the core banking software migration effort from ops perspective.

Gathered functional requirements & draft use cases for International Private Banking (Wealth) System – IPBS.

Automated the trade settlement for Equity, Bond, Structured Deposit, and Structured Note purchase+sell transactions. This only included Securities lending with a lien on holdings and repayment + prepayment features before selloff.

Automation of Mark-to-market valuations with feeds from Bloomberg and auto generation of calls for more equity where required. Led the IPBS (Wealth Management system) integration with SWIFT (MT5XX) and Finacle (Core Banking System). Optimize the data flow and automated the generation of transaction notes.

Performed extensive "Gap analysis" of the Wealth Management application & drive automation.

Maintain operational oversight and identify opportunities to increase efficiency and reduce margin for error

Drafted the Business Impact Analysis document and led the creation of a Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

Process Migration Role

ICICI Bank UK PLC (London, United Kingdom) Aug 2005 – Feb 2006

Understand Branch and Operations processes; create WBS and a plan to migrate processes offshore.

Streamlined the Nostro Account Reconciliation process – cleared the backlog, established benchmarks, created SOP, and migrated the full process to centralized operations team reducing the need for 3 FTEs.

Worked with LRC for process migration efforts. Draft SOX documents as per Risk requirements.

Drafted Process Migration Document. Defined risks, controls, and TATs.

Train staff at offshore location on how to undertake processing tasks. Hand hold & retrain where required.

Update leadership with the status and matrix showing the success of tasks handled with challenges faced.

Skills

Tools: Montran, Murex, Nostro, SOX Systems, MS Office, Core Banking, ICBS (Integrated Computerized Banking System), Risk & Compliance monitoring systems, AML (Anti Money Laundering) system, SWIFT, MS Sharepoint, World Check, basic SQL & VBA, Tableau (integration phase), Figma, PowerBI CRM: SalesForce, Finacle Customer Relationship Management PM: JIRA, Confluence, Aha!, MS Project, Miro.

Payment Platforms: Interac, Stripe, Square, localized EFTs (Electronic Fund Transfer), FiServ payment SWIFT (Categories 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9), NACHA framework (National Automated Clearing House Association), ACH (Automated Clearing House), NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer), RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement), IMPS (Immediate Payment Service), BACS (Bankers' Automated Clearing System), CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System), BASE24 switch.

Lifecycles: Product Development Life Cycle, Requirement Management Life Cycle, & Project Mgt Life Cycle.

Project Management: Waterfall, Agile, and continuous delivery approach. Lean methodologies.

Testing: A/B, product testing (manual and partially automated), Real World beta (user) testing.

Environments: QA, Pre-Prod, and Prod.

Qualifications / Certifications

Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute, USA

Regulatory Exam 5 from Financial Services Board, the South African Financial Services Regulator

Master of Commerce (Finance and Accounting) from University of Mumbai, India

Bachelor of Commerce (Finance and Accounting) from University of Mumbai, India

Cleared the Certificate Examination in Life Insurance (R) from the Insurance Institute of India

Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers, India

Certified Mental Health First Aid provider from the Mental Health Commission of Canada

Certificate from the Conflict Resolution Training Program Initiative, Canada

Volunteering

Tutor at the Enhanced Learning Center focused on math from Feb 2019 to Jul 2022.

Member at the Community for Refugee Settlements Initiative, Canada.

Member of the Community Education Services, South Africa.

Local chapter lead at the Community Education Services, India.

Contact this candidate