AKSHAY SHIVPAL SHARMA

As the Chief Customer Officer at a SaaS product company, I oversee all facets of customers journey post-sales. From implementation and training to project management, account oversight, and customer care, I ensure our clients receive exceptional service and value throughout their partnership with us. My responsibilities include developing and executing yearly plans, managing budgets, overseeing hiring initiatives, and maintaining a strategic focus on customer satisfaction and retention. By effectively managing these critical areas, I contribute to the success and growth of the business while fostering long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with valued customers.

Heading the Platform Delivery department for Products and Projects Management, that consists of the following functions (teams)-

- Project Management

- Implementation & Training

- Business Analysts

- Solution Architects

- Development

- PMO

Setting-up the Project Management Office, Project Management Team, end to end processes for efficient deliveries for Projects & Products.

End-to-end Project and Program Management for Managed Security Services platform.

- Threat Detection

- Enterprise Security Monitoring

- Device Management

- Cloud Security (AWS, Azure, WAFaaS, ZScaler, O365, Data Lakes)

- Privileged Access Management

- SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response)

- Platform enhancements

A) Business Unit Management

- Led internal Digital Transformation initiative that involved automation projects for most of the departments (Sales, MIS, HR, IT, Quality, Recruitment). Conducted demos for several potential customers using Low code application platform.

B) Selected for Fundamental Program at NTT Communications and worked in NTT Communications HQ in Tokyo in Global IT Governance (May 2017– Oct2017)

- Contributed in Global IT Architecture Initiatives management at NTT Communications for CRM projects (Global Billing Systems, Global Contract

Management), Service Integration and Management (Unified Ticketing), Office 365 Migration and Global ERP

- Identified opportunities for new business and collaboration between NTT Communications and Emerio

- Quality, Communication and Stakeholder Management for existing projects

C) Business Process Automation

- End to end management of Business Process Automation projects for Finance, Corporate Planning, Human Resources, Group IT and Quality Team

- Working with partners on delivering low code based application (workflow based applications) for Business Process Automation

- Applications included –

1. Sales - Sales order till order book processing, Milestone tracking and billing, Professional Services Contracts.

2. Human Resources Applications (Employee, Leave Management, Exit Processes, Induction, Recruitment Management, HR Case Management and

Training Requests)

3. IT systems applications – Access Requests for employees, Infrastructure requests for employees

4. Quality forms – Proposal review checklists, Supplier evaluation Forms, Purchase Requests

- Continued to initiate deployment of platform into 2 more locations; Germany and Hong Kong.

- Instrumental in development of support function and ROTA to 24x7 with one manned seat around the clock.

- Initiated BU team restructuring and work processes that provided NTT Communications with enhanced support of product roadmap, such as leading continuous integration and automation framework activities.

- Managed large global engineering team of 40 members, with stakeholders in different locations such as USA, Japan, Sweden, and the UK.

- Frequently worked round-the-clock across multiple time zones to ensure successful deployment of various product stages.

- Integral in management of Statement of Work (SOW) with NTT Communications and NTT Com Security; successfully completed product deliverables and enhancements under tight time and budget constraints as per the product roadmap driven by NTT Communications and NTT Com Security Management.

- Successfully managed all team ramp-ups-and-downs as directed by client without affecting performance or business continuity.

Integral role in establishing, implementing and setting up Business Unit to manage Security Services Platform from ground up. Defined development and testing processes, test metrics, security policy for the department and 24x 7 support.

- In charge of team hiring and establishment of roles and responsibilities; facility setup and procurement of infrastructure; formation of development environment for team; defining development, testing and project management processes for department; and created security

policy to ensure a secure facility.

- Led team ramp-up from 1 to 35 members in 15 months. Mentored and developed diverse team of developers, test leads, test engineers, infrastructure engineers, tech writers, architects, data modellers, quality analysts, database administrators, security engineer and automation engineers to deliver high quality product features on time and within budget.

- Initiated development of project team structure and governance for enhanced team management and conflict resolution. Responsible for career growth and performance appraisal of all 35 members.

- Successfully completed Base Release (Release v1) before stipulated deadline amidst several operating challenges such as resource constraints, unclear project scope and ambiguous project road map.

- Trained and mentored separate support group and defined production support processes based on ITIL framework.

- Spearheaded platform deployment across 5 locations; North America, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia.

- Frequently participated in product roadmap meetings in USA, Europe and Japan; acted as main liaison between external stakeholders and top management. - - Leveraged excellent communication skills to align engineering team with top management and NTT Communications vision.

- Promoted to Assistant Vice President within 12 months for achieving outstanding business results as a Program Manager.

• Led end-to-end testing of T24 (core banking product) and International Data Warehouse projects, overseeing test planning, resource allocation for testing team, test reporting, and UAT support.
• In charge of project scope & risk management, including requirement gathering, analysing, validating and documenting; controlling change and communicating with management.
• Project managed International Data Warehouse enhancements and Regulatory Reporting projects to ensure compliance with regulatory provisions.
• Well versed in Asset Under Management (AUM), Net New Assets (NNA), Income and Turnover figures business reconciliation.

Significant Highlights:

• Promoted twice; 1) to Business Engineer in Jan 2010, and 2) assigned Project Management tasks from 2011 onwards.
• Contributed to the end-to-end testing of an International Data Warehouse that enhanced reporting of Private Banking Management Accounting monthly figures from legacy MIS application.
• Successfully reconciled correctness of figures and enhancements in 6 locations including Singapore, Hong Kong, UK, Gibraltar & Guernsey and US.
• Project management for warehouse enhancements, RMB support for phase 1-3, UAT & SIT coordination and support and Business Intelligence.
• Meticulously prepared Functional Specification Documentation (FSD), mapping specifications, defined project plans and delivered project status reports to higher management.

• Involved in planning, monitoring and overseeing all aspects of testing activities, including test execution (manual or automated testing) and test reporting to management.
• Main liaison between management and testing team, ensuring smooth communication of test status, test outcomes and quality assurance.

Significant Highlights

• Successfully completed projects for clients such as MayBank Malaysia, BPI Bank Philippines, UTI India, VisaNet Brasil, National Bank of Greece, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank & PBZ Croatia. Worked on development of applications such as Enhanced Payment Application (XLS) and various loyalty products including Card Care Server & Card Behavioural Server.
• Led team of 7 test engineers in design and review of test plans, workload allocation, resource allocation, test execution and status reports to senior management.  

• Conducted opportunity studies for contact and contactless technologies, including scope analysis, preparation of validation test plans and validation test specifications.
• Participated in technical reviews of software design and supervised peer reviews of SRS documentation.

Significant Highlights:

• In charge of EMV and EMV Migration training within R&D department, mentoring team of 8 on issuance, acceptance and security of EMV interface.
• Spearheaded development of Smart Card operating system validation and automation using C programming.

• Managed developments in C, MULTOS and JavaCard technologies based on EMV specifications.
• Successfully conducted end-to-end testing to ensure smooth running of applications and submitted Common Criteria documentation for Smart Cards Security certification.