Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Trainings
Additional Information
Timeline
Generic

Rathi Saravanan

Sr.Engineering Program Manager
San Jose,CA

Summary

Passionate, results driven program management/operations professional, currently delivering top-tier programs for Cisco‘s wireless portfolio worth over $4B 15 years of experience in spearheading several strategic large-scale and complex HW/SW (Including Cloud), functional and technical (Waterfall/Agile) solutions that drive business objectives including market share, ROI, cost savings, innovation, and quality. Proven track-record of excellence in program execution/governance, release/change & budget management, quality engineering, business operations, process reengineering for prestigious organizations across the globe

Overview

4
4
years of post-secondary education
18
18
years of professional experience

Work History

Engineering Program Manager

Cisco Systems
01.2014 - Current
  • Drive large/complex cross-functional Wireless Solutions & Product Release management – (Access Points, WLAN controllers, 5G Private Network, DNA Spaces).
  • Drive a large spectrum of Wireless projects over the full project lifecycle from conception to productization.
  • Plan, lead and facilitate Agile practices, cross functional team dependencies, create release schedules and related staffing/budget plans.
  • Technical SW project planning and execution leadership SW Design/Dev & Quality Engineering activities (SDLC, Coding Standards, Code Reviews, Source control Management, build process, Integration, testing & Software Release management).
  • Directly accountable to the Senior Executives (VP & SVP) Key Projects: Enterprise 5G Cloud Solution (March 2020 onwards).
  • E2E to end Private 5G solution that includes a Partner RAN, IBNG simplified Polaris based Mobile Packet Core, Cisco Identity Services Engine for Subscriber (SIM) authentication, and both Cisco DNA Center Cloud and On Prem management platforms.
  • In addition, the solution includes third party SIM card vendor integration with Cisco DNA Center to automate the SIM card onboarding, ordering, and fulfillment directly to the Enterprise.
  • Drive E2E project plan/schedule from concept through execution.
  • Manage geographically distributed teams (SW/Cloud), offshore development & cross functional teams, third-party vendors by coordinating internal and vendor schedules, integrating teams and vendors into project strategy/timelines, budget plans, lead execution fidelity and overall program integrity.
  • DNA Spaces An industry leading Indoor location & IoT-as-a Service platform (Dec 2020 onwards) Leading the execution of multiple engineering tracks for Cisco DNA Spaces – Fully cloud managed platform that harnesses data (behavior of people (customers, guests, employees) and things (IoT devices, BLE tags, beacons) from an existing wireless infrastructure and turns it into consumable insights and actionable business outcomes.
  • Track & monitor assets, Granular location analytics, Behavior Insights & Benchmarking are some of the key product features.
  • Drive enterprise-wide, global, multi-site scrum teams for continuous deployment while ensuring that we are creating the best-in-breed product and service experiences.
  • Work closely with product management on the release/ product roadmap, drive Agile commits.
  • Facilitate ongoing engagement with the Escalation, CX, TME & Docs team to ensure that the continuous feedback loop remains healthy.
  • 11ac Wave 2 & 11ax WiFi6 Access Points.

Cisco
09.2014 - 12.2019
  • Led the execution of the entire WLAN 802.11ax/WiFi6 portfolio for, Jan 2018-Jul 2020 (>2B revenue projected) successfully.
  • Managed and lead a multi sited cross functional Wi-Fi engineering team (System Architecture/ASIC/Hardware/software/QA) to support feature development for multiple silicon chipsets.
  • Work with development teams to come up with detailed architecture and execution plans including cross functional dependencies.
  • Delivered the complete portfolio of the - 11ac Wave2 Access Points (Sep 2014 to 2017) - Small/Medium & Large enterprise organizations requiring mission-critical traffic.
  • Millions of units sold and the highest revenue generator for the Wireless business since 2016 Other Responsibilities -.
  • Road map & release planning, process adherence and program governance.
  • Capacity planning, reporting/metrics and driving operational excellence across teams.
  • Instrumental in driving quality at source initiatives with 3rd party SW vendors.
  • Extensive firsthand experience in driving successful ISO Audits.

Technical Program Manager

Wipro Technologies
01.2011 - 01.2014
  • Enterprise transformation / Data Management team for the Group IT of Lloyds Banking Group, UK Managed projects over $12M Revenue for multiple LBG projects Enterprise Transformation.
  • Providing delivery operational support to the Head of IT Portfolio Delivery with responsibilities for Executive level MI Reporting & insights and overall Portfolio Governance.
  • Provided the business analysis for projects on the portfolio - key milestones and benefit realization tracking, key performance indicators (KPIs).
  • Managed the Change Management Process of Group IT, by facilitating the tools change requests through appropriate channels and processes and tracked them through closure.
  • Also ran the BAU services and transformational program projects into the IT process repository for the bank, ‘TheSource’.
  • This program won UK’s Financial World Innovation award in Nov 2013.
  • Responsibilities included - Coordinate with LBG leads & Product owners and finalize scope/schedule for TheSource two-week sprints.
  • Monitor and control the process improvement suggestions and defects through pipeline logs and Release logs.
  • Manage highly productive distributed Agile teams across geographies.
  • Conducted various agile rituals - Stand-ups, planning, refinement, retrospectives and reveals.
  • Aligned various sprints with release plans between 4 teams with regular scrum of scrums.
  • Was a change agent implementing better change management techniques that would help release and more frequent deployments.
  • Adherence to SLA parameters on delivery/quality.
  • Identify & Mitigate risks and implement contingency plans as needed.
  • Liaised with the LBG program team for transition of new services to BAU Team: Data Management and Reporting.
  • Responsible for overall direction, Co-ordination Planning, assigning, directing work to the offshore team.
  • The team extended support to the Resource & Workforce Management Group, Portfolio Management Group, MI & Governance Team, Data Management, Data Quality, and Policy Compliance teams within LBG’s Group IT.
  • Deliverables included, high visibility – MI reports, Weekly & Monthly Performance Packs, SQL and VBA based extracts/reports from client systems and query resolutions on the same, Balanced Score Card creation, Data quality Issues resolution.
  • Maintained a YTD SLA metrics of 98.7% on timeliness and 99.9% on Accuracy.
  • Prepared KPI and Baseline standardizations for the process Implemented 4 Lean projects within MI & Governance which resulted in 20 FTE savings and over 20 kaizens saving 1000s of man hours annually.

Project/Ops Manager

Allzone Management Solutions
01.2008 - 01.2011
  • AllZone is a healthcare management, legal services and e-publishing company based in India and the United States.
  • Offers services to individual physician offices, family practices, clinics, hospitals, and billing companies across the United States.
  • Managed a large team of software engineers in the Automation/Web development unit.
  • Assured quality solutions by working very closely with the Automation group rolling in test automation initiatives.
  • Led the intranet solutions by formulating objectives, planning project life-cycle deliverables and resource availability, evaluation, and design of technical solutions along with the Architects/Leads.
  • Coordinated with various internal and external departments, vendors, management and supported all IT operational activities.
  • Was accountable for operational reporting and process improvements across the teams.

Education

Advanced Diploma - Web/UI Design

01.1999 - 01.2000

BA - undefined

University of Madras
01.1995 - 01.1998

Skills

    Strategic/Project Planning

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Accomplishments

  • Agile Certified Practitioner - PMI
  • PRINCE 2 – Practitioner – APMG
  • CSM – Scrum Alliance
  • SAFe Practitioner – SAFe
  • Stanford Advanced Program Management Certifications -.
  • Converting Strategy into Action.
  • Leadership – Strategic Execution.
  • Leading Effective Teams

Trainings

  • AWS Practitioner
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • ITIL V3 fondation
  • 6 SIGMA – Green Belt
  • Lean Organisation
  • KANBAN solutions
  • Wireless 101.

Additional Information

  • Cisco Pioneer Award 2018 – AP 2800/3800 Product Innovation Category
  • San Jose Cisco Ops Awards 2017 – Driving high revenue initiatives
  • Certificate of Excellence for Project Management of the Change Engine 2013 - 14 (Lloyds Banking Group, UK)
  • Certificate of Excellence for Process Management of the Reporting Engine 2012-13 (Lloyds Banking Group, UK)

Timeline

Cisco
09.2014 - 12.2019

Engineering Program Manager

Cisco Systems
01.2014 - Current

Technical Program Manager

Wipro Technologies
01.2011 - 01.2014

Project/Ops Manager

Allzone Management Solutions
01.2008 - 01.2011

Advanced Diploma - Web/UI Design

01.1999 - 01.2000

BA - undefined

University of Madras
01.1995 - 01.1998

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Rathi SaravananSr.Engineering Program Manager