Rakesh Raja - PMP®, GCPA, ASM, ISTQB

Senior Program Manager partnering closely with executive leadership in the CIO Office to drive enterprise-wide Cloud, Digital, and AI transformation initiatives. Experienced in translating technology strategy into scalable execution roadmaps that deliver measurable business outcomes. Leads complex, cross-functional programs spanning cloud migration and modernization, digital platform transformation, data and AI enablement, and IT operating model evolution. Strong expertise in program governance, financial oversight, risk and dependency management, and executive-level reporting to ensure alignment with strategic priorities. Acts as a trusted advisor to CIOs, VPs, and senior leaders by providing data-driven insights, executive dashboards, and clear visibility into program health, value realization, and transformation progress. Adept at navigating ambiguity, aligning multiple stakeholders, and driving execution across global teams, system integrators, and cloud partners. Known for balancing strategic intent with operational excellence—driving adoption, change management, and continuous improvement to ensure technology investments translate into sustainable business impact.

Key Responsibilities: Develop end-to-end architecture for digital platforms, integrating systems such as banking, telecom, ERP, CRM, payment gateways, and mobile apps. Create high-level and detailed solution designs ensuring non-functional requirements like performance, scalability, security, and regulatory compliance (PCI DSS, GDPR, etc.) are met. Lead prototyping and proof-of-concept exercises to validate technologies and design approaches. Provide technical leadership to development, DevOps, and integration teams; conduct architecture and code reviews; recommend reusable components and optimizations. Collaborate with clients and stakeholders to gather requirements, translate them into technical specifications, and present solution blueprints and implementation plans. Define API strategies, data flows, and middleware solutions for seamless multi-platform integration. Enforce architecture governance, maintain documentation, and ensure alignment with enterprise policies and standards. Mentor junior architects and technical teams, promoting best practices and knowledge sharing. Stay abreast of emerging technologies in FinTech, telecom, digital payments, and cloud solutions; recommend platform enhancements and process improvements. Drive innovation through adoption of AI/ML, analytics, and modern architecture patterns like microservices, cloud-native, and DevOps practices. Skills & Expertise: Strong understanding of digital payments, loyalty platforms, telecom, and banking systems. Hands-on experience with solution architecture, API integration, cloud platforms, and secure enterprise systems. Knowledge of regulatory frameworks, risk mitigation, and compliance requirements. Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and client-facing skills. Ability to balance business requirements with technical feasibility and drive enterprise-wide architectural solutions.

- Work directly with other product owners, system engineers, program managers, developers, testers, and customers to define features and technical user stories - Support an Agile Software Development process, working in conjunction with end users / stakeholders and technical delivery team - Work closely with counterparts in Product Management to align on the- vision, program backlog, and road-map - Acting as stakeholder of specific product backlog items, work closely with development teams to ensure the output to be aligned with expectations - Being the voice of the customer and providing a business perspective on value during day-to-day development

- Facilitate sprint planning, daily scrums, retrospectives, stakeholder meetings, and software demonstrations. - Protect development team from outside distractions, impediments, or team conflicts, and maintain focus on product backlog project timeline. - Work closely with project owner in backlog management and continuous delivery of features. - Educate and reinforce scrum methodology and agile framework to team members and stakeholders. - Direct and lead development team from project initiation through the delivery of final product. - Take the initiative in project planning, scoping, budgeting and completing high-quality projects - Lead an agile team of developers taking care of innovative, agile projects and ensure they are profitable - Support Agile teams utilizing a variety of processes and methodologies including Test Driven - Development, Exploratory Testing, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, Scrum, Lean and Extreme Programming - Review program documents to ensure scope, schedule, and costs commitments are reasonable and achievable. Participate in program reviews to ensure projects are on track - Create and maintain cross-functional development schedules, including coordinating dependencies - Conduct project analysis and reporting through product/iteration burn-up charts, velocity, and quality monitoring - Facilitate stand-ups, agile scrum ceremonies, decision making, and conflict resolution - Collaborate with the product team on the product requirements documents - Ensure appropriate KPIs are in place for the delivery team and using Agile techniques to measure and demonstrate ongoing improvement

• Responsible for aligning the test teams within the organization and identifying the roadmap for the testing process • Creating scope of the testing for the test case based on the requirement documentation • Preparing the test plans, subjecting them to be reviewed and receiving approval from the management • Locating and utilizing the tools required for test reporting, test management and test automation etc. • Analyzing the skill gap within the resources and planning the necessary training for the teams • Monitoring the testing cycle through efficient task management • Keeping a tab on the project timelines and resolving issues faced by the testing team to ensure hassle free delivery • Acted as the conduit of information between the testing team and the management • Possess in-depth knowledge in Mainframe Testing, Batch processing, Querying DB2 and programming • Coordinating with the customer's business team in identifying and gathering requirements and articulating business solutions • Responsible for handling business development and pre-sales initiatives • Liaising with multi-functional teams in offering business development solutions • Part of the testing team responsible for conducting web accessibility testing, cross browser testing, sanity test, performance and exploratory testing • Hands on experience in dealing with reporting tools such as FB Sentiment Analyser, Social Media Analyser, Mobile App Analyser, and Xcelsius Dashboards • Analysing cost and profitability of new accounts • Coordinating with cross-functional teams and vendors in ensuring hassle free client visits • Maintaining and tracking IT assets of the team • Running project meetings including KickOff Meets, and Status Meets (Internal/Client) • Experienced in working with clients to map out their existing business processes and providing system-based solutions that increase efficiency and reduce operating costs

Tools: Service Now, Citrix Server, ITBM, SiteDB, Champs, Bart, Remarcs, Symantec PC, Anywhere, Outlet Support Tools, Lotus Notes, Caterwide, My Micros • Managed SLA’s with vendors supporting Whitbread • Prioritised incidents in order of their business impact • Reviewed problem trends, planned and drove improvement plans • Used multiple QC tools in identifying trends and reporting • Ensured operational effectiveness and efficiency of problem management process • Followed the escalation procedures during breaches and major incidents • Updated the SLA, SOW, SOP’s and process documents periodically • Managed end-to-end incident tickets in coordination with production and infra support groups • Anlaysed incidents on timely basis for proactively reporting problem management • Managed major incident bridges and command centers for critical activities such as outages/incidents, DC failovers, Database failovers and DR testing etc. • Offered critical information for root-cause analysis by identifying the hot spots • Guide the support services and infrastructure teams on CR and ECR • Worked with Release Management for FHD’s and other trainings • Participated in weekly call with vendors to discuss trends, SLA breaches and service improvement plans • Responsible for handling escalations and following up to prevent backlogs • Monitored the updates of a project and forwarded reports to the Senior Manager • Analysed several projects and updated strategies and methodologies • Identifying areas of improvement and refresh the training document • Responsible for forecasting and monitoring call queue