# Upendra Poranki **Principal Product Manager** — Vancouver, Canada > I am driven primarily by two things at work: Delight the Customer + Drive results for the Business. Everything else should be at the service of the above two goals. Put simply, my focus is to: • Find problems worth solving (this can be Market level, product level , or feature level, depending on the product and the scope of my mandate). • Drive the creation of delightful solutions to those problems that are superior than the market's alternatives. • Take the solutions to market by clearly articulating the problem our product is solving, for the segment we're solving it for, and why it's a better choice for them than their alternatives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a Product leader I bring teams together to solve problems for customers. Across business, design, and engineering functions, I connect company objectives, product strategy, and market knowledge to empower teams to deliver long term value and delight to customers. So far I have built and successfully grew multiple 0->1 B2B SaaS products across multiple industries like B2B E-commerce / People Analytics (Amazon) and Fintech SaaS (Procurify). I am known for my ability to break down complex problems to move initiatives forward, level-up the teams I work with, and effectively communicate across a variety of audience.(Executives/Customers/Board to Peers). Skilled in product strategy, stakeholder management, customer research and interviews, roadmap planning and prioritisation, and working with agile SaaS development teams to solve customer problems. As Grace Hopper rightly said "You manage things, You lead people." I practice situational leadership with my teams promoting a high degree of autonomy built upon an environment of accountability and agency. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Current Role: At UPSC, I work with VP, CXO and Founders on defining Product Vision, Strategy and mechanisms to lead, operate and scale a high-performing Product teams. ## Links - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/upendraporanki ## Experience ### Lead Instructor, Circuit Stream (2025-04 – present) Toronto, Ontario, Canada · As a Product Management Coach and instructor at Circuit Stream, I lead a learner centered bootcamp covering core product management topics such as product lifecycle, market research, roadmap development, user experience, product analytics and agile methodologies. Learners gain hands on experience to conceptualize, design, and plan the launch of a viable product. Through market analysis, customer persona development, and strategic planning, they will produce a prototype, tested with real users, and supported by a detailed product execution plan over a period of 21 weeks. They get hands on training on tools like JIRA, MixPanel, Amplitude,Figma + basic SQL and Prompt Engineering. This program is offered in partnerships with both University of Toronto & McGill University. ### Adjunct Faculty, York University School of Continuing Studies (2024-10 – present) Toronto, ON · At the York University, School of Continuing Studies, I share my learnings as a Product Leader to develop and teach the Certificate in Product Management & Certificate in User Experience (UX) Design Programs. My courses (CSPM1020, CSUE1110) focus on the business value and principles of User Experience Design, User Research and Product Management. ### Product Management, UP PRODUCT STRATEGY CONSULTING (2023-01 – present) Canada · Guiding Product teams through the fog of ambiguity towards product clarity and growth. A few of my current projects related to AI include: - Lead an AI native Product Squad (Devs, PMs, QA all using AI tools to deliver 10X) to support platform and user experience transformation initiatives at Global Top #5 Bank for their Capital Markets business line. - Led an agentic AI startup as Fractional Product Leader, implementing MVP validation frameworks that focused team execution(through ICP Definition and Positioning) and saw a 20% increase in trial customers (through B2B Product Led Growth Strategy). - Developed an end-end workflow automation product for a North American Structural Engineering Firm using n8n, MathCAD Prime MCP server and Claude Code. - Created a customer discovery system AI agent that transformed 100+ interviews/surveys into actionable insights for rapid product development, through an integration of Replit, Gong and ProductBoard (Output sent to Google Suite). ### Director of Product Management, Procurify (2021-08 – 2022-10) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada · Procurify helps companies achieve their goals effectively with intelligent spend management. Finance and operations teams want the right amount of control and visibility to budgets and spending across the company while supporting an empowered team spend culture. We fulfil this need and go beyond tracking transactions to nudging effective spending behaviour within teams through timely insights. Key Results: As a member of the Exec team, I led the Product management and Design teams and help unify multiple existing product portfolios to reposition the product as Procure-to-Pay software, helping drive 40% revenue growth and improving NPS by 30+ points. These milestones led to $50 million USD in a Series C funding round. The Product teams I led have innovated on the following portfolios: 1) Core Spend Platform - Expense Management, Auto-Invoice Reconciliation, Purchase Order Approvals 2) Bill Payments - Scheduled Payments through Cheque, ACH, Wire Transfer in multiple currencies 3) Spending Cards - Physical and Virtual Purchase cards with granular rules to control and manage spend by type or vendor. 4) APIs and Integrations - Public API Launch. Integrate Procure to Pay experience on Procurify with ERPs like Netsuite, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intaact , Microsoft Dynamics and Xero // Punchout Vendors like Amazon , Grainger , Staples, Fischer Scientific etc 5) Reporting and Analytics - Real time analytics to manage budget overage and rogue spend. Rebuilt Product and Design teams from the ground up (1->7 PMs), fostering growth through mentorship and creating a product culture of experimentation. - Created the first ever Product Team Growth Ladder (Principle Product tenets/ PM Levelling and Promotion Rubric) and Operating Cadence for roadmap planning and customer metrics review. Directly managed 7 PMs and One Design Manager (4 Designers). - Promoted 3 PMs/1 DM. Launched the “Associate PM” program to improve in-house knowledge retention and employee career growth. ### Senior Product Manager, Amazon (2017-02 – 2020-08) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada · As the Single threaded Product Leader for Amazon Business Enterprise Post Order Buying Experience teams, I created the vision, product strategy and multi year roadmap, catering to the needs of Large Enterprises and Fortune 500 Corporations procuring from Amazon Business amazon.com/b2b at $15 Billion revenue at that time. Key Results: • Pioneered Amazon's first Enterprise Buyer CRM, improving the post-order procurement experience for 96 of Fortune 100 companies supported in 6 countries around the world. • Drove the alignment of product requirements, managed the road map for all Enterprise Support technology initiatives and obtained additional funding to grow the team from 2 to 14 engineers. • Cross-functionally led a team of 30+ Amazonians, as a Single Threaded Product leader, spanning 4 team functions (Engineering, UX, Support, User Research) and successfully launched Amazon’s first ever Enterprise Buyer CRM product that provided ground truth view of Enterprise account level case management system for issue resolutions e.g. Bulk Tax Refund for Amazon ,Tax Exemption Feature, Invoice By Amazon, Authentication for Shared accounts, Automated Contact resolutions and Refunds for Bulk purchases. • Launched Enterprise support call routing that increased the % of AB Enterprise customers reaching a Premium support CS agent on first attempt by XX% on all devices and channels. • Launched Multi-User Account dashboard – Customer Service CRM to meet the unique customer service needs of Amazon’s Enterprise customers with large order sizes(> $XXX).Improved CSAT scores by XX% YOY. • Led development of NLP-based chatbot "Message Us for Business" that improved First Contact Resolution rate by XX% and saved $YM+ annually in customer support costs. • Helped launch in 4 new countries France, Italy and Spain and India through Localization and Internationalization efforts. This experience leading multiple 0->1 products lead to my next role in Amazon. ### Head of Product - Co-Founder, Ydhyam Healthcare (2014-09 – 2017-01) Gurugram, Haryana, India · • Launched consumer health rewards platform achieving 5K+ early adopters across National Capital Region with 80% CSAT score by building gamified fitness tracking system that increased healthy behavior frequency through walk-in-park and gym/yoga incentives. • Scaled 0→1 consumer marketplace from concept to 5K users in 12 months through data-driven product strategy and user acquisition campaigns, demonstrating strong product-market fit in competitive health-tech landscape. • Led product pivot strategy after comprehensive monetization analysis revealed unsustainable cash flow model, successfully transitioning focus to elderly services (similar to Goodfellows, India) based on market research and user feedback synthesis. ------------------------------------------- • Explored the concept of “Healthcare through Incentives” rewarding health conscious consumers with net "Zero" health insurance premiums. • Built Goodapple.co as a service that logs and motivates customers to get fitter, by increasing the frequency and diversity of healthy choices they make in their day to day lives. • Together with a team of awesome designers, UX gurus, Fitness specialists & Doctors, we set out to solve the " Pay for insurance vs Invest in health & fitness" conundrum to help young people stay healthy by incentivising good life choices (Run, Workout, Buy/Eat Healthy Food etc). Early stage startups are high risk bets, and we lost this one. Failed to scale the supply side of the Marketplace Flywheel and generate sustainable cash flows. Pivoted it into a private "Elderly Care Services" firm. We stopped the Insurance-Fitness beta product in 2017 and pivoted the focus to services for the elderly. My experience working with Small and Medium Businesses and building a marketplace for products and services helped me land my role at Amazon as their first PM on the Enterprise Buying Experience team. ### Product Owner (Multiple Technical Roles), Nokia Siemens Networks (2010-03 – 2014-08) Berlin, Germany · • Launched Nokia's first telecom SaaS platform serving 5M+ business subscribers across EMEA, driving concept-to-pilot in 6 months and pilot-to-revenue in 11 months through strategic collaboration with EVP Strategy and Country Sales Directors for €200M TAM opportunity. • Built and scaled two 0→1 enterprise products (No-code Telco Platform and Telco API Mashups) by leading cross-functional product and marketing teams, securing 6 customer pilots, 3 vendor partnerships, and 2 live trials within a 14-month launch timeline. • Won Global Telecoms Business 2011 Best Telco Product in Cloud Award for Yuave Mobile Cloud Platform, achieving industry recognition and successful spin-off by Nokia/Verso Ventures as an independent UK-based company serving a profitable EMEA customer base. • Delivered carrier-grade telecom SaaS solution (Yuave - "Force.com for Telecom apps") as dual-platform offering (enterprise web + standalone mobile), capturing €200M addressable market through end-to-end product ownership from ideation to commercial launch. I started in Nokia Siemens Networks as a Management Trainee and worked in IT Strategy team as an Analyst before transitioning into Product Management.Startup@NSN an internal idea incubator funded through Nokia Ventures helped me take an idea and build a 0->1 revenue generating product that was eventually spun off as an independent company. This experience motivated me to move back to India and start my own startup. ## Education ### B.E (Hons) in Computer Science, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Activities and societies: SPICMACAY, English Press Club, Debating Club, Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership ### Master of Science (Hons) in Mathematics, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Activities and societies: BITS Mathematics Association, Network Security Forum (Hacking,Network Security and Cryptography Enthusiasts) ## Skills Test Automation, Software Quality, User Experience (UX), UX Research, Design Thinking, Agile Project Management, Order Management, Enterprise Support, Case Management, Telecommunication Services, Scrum, User Stories, Enterprise Software, Product Leadership, Customer Service, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Conversational AI, Generative AI Tools, Product Led growth, Customer Retention, Monetization, Customer Acquisition Strategies, Growth Strategies, People Management, Team Motivation, Team Leadership, Analytical Skills, Team Management, Communication, Strategic Thinking, Leadership, Strategy, Business Growth Strategies, Growth Hacking, Revenue & Profit Growth, Strategic Planning for Growth, Performance Management, Financial Results, Data Science, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Analytics, Enablement, Coaching, Presentation Skills ## Credentials - **Generative AI Product Strategy** — Reforge (issued 2024-02) - **Product Led Growth** — Reforge (issued 2024-03) - **Advanced Growth Strategy** — Reforge (issued 2023-05) - **People Leadership & Coaching (BPX FALL 22 Cohort)** — Raw Signal Group (issued 2022-09) --- Source: https://saywise.com/upendra (last modified 2026-07-16T01:13:02.374Z)