The WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth that we have today is thanks to Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian-American actress and inventor of these technology products. Time and again, female leaders driving innovation have been showing the world how their unique perspectives are helpful in creating great products and product practices for mankind. It’s worth to know about the kind of futuristic products and solutions women chief product officers are building today and how they excelled by voyaging through the road less taken to get to where they are now. Here is a list of women chief product officers in 2024 who have accomplished great feats, passing on their experiences to younger generations and taking on larger challenges for a better tomorrow.
Karthi Subbaraman - A Leader, Creator and Educator
Karthi, a Senior Design Director at Salesforce and India Lead at Women In Product, started out as a Software Engineer and quickly climbed the ladder to founding her own ventures and is a visiting faculty in highly esteemed educational institutions. Prior to her entrepreneurial life, Karthi spearheaded teams to build products like printers and printing solutions at Hewlett Packard. This inspired other leading companies like Epson, Lexmark and Canon among others to also change their UI to Touch screens. Thereafter, she focused on transforming businesses through Design Thinking & Design Doing at Oghma Design. She built an ecosystem to solve problems, provide advisory services and educate makers at Xperian. Karthi then went on to share her know-how on the ups and downs of the design world with young minds at educational institutes such as the National Institute of Design and MIT Institute of Design. Later, she worked as a Principal Group Design Manager at Microsoft for about a year. Now, she is already in her next chapter of building a community of highly-engaged women Product Managers at Women In Product, while functioning as a Senior Design Director at Salesforce. Karthi holds an MBA from the Institute of Product Leadership and an MS from Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
Lalitha Ramani K - A Pillar Behind Many Companies’ Transformation Journeys
Lalitha Ramani K is the GM of Maps Experiences, India & NBU Markets at Google. An alumnus of IIM Calcutta, Lalitha Ramani ventured into the product world as a software engineer and quickly moved up to lead the front lines at highly renowned firms in domestic and international markets. She took larger roles early on, including leading the Product Management, UX and Marketing functions at Wipro, taking the product suite to its then-highest ever NPS and revenue in Intuit. She also led a talented team to build eCommerce products for Mexico, UK, and Canada markets and a data and Cross Border Trade team for Walmart. At Myntra, her capabilities began to scream louder than ever when she helped the company launch a mall that boosted its online-offline synergy.
She helped lead Myntra into social commerce right when online shopping rose in popularity and made the company one of the first e-commerce firms to adopt live-shopping models.
Other product innovations led by her worth mentioning are Myntra Live, Myntra Studio, Virtual TryOns, Deep Personalization, Myntra Mall, and Style Exchange. She has indeed helped build Myntra into the most innovative fashion-tech disruptor. She continues to dazzle in the realm by creating impactful products that customers love at Google. Being recognized as an Indian thought leader and speaker at conferences like Nasscom & Grace Hopper comes off as just another day in the life of this ever-revolutionary leader.
Mabel Chacko - A Force to be Reckoned With in the Fintech World
Mabel Chacko is the Co-founder and COO of Open Financial Technologies Private Limited. Mabel conquered the throne of the financial space very early in her journey. As a serial entrepreneur for more than 15 years in the sector, Mabel’s companies are India's first biometric payment startup, Touch2pay, Contactless payment startup, Cashnxt, NFC-based payment platform Neartivity Wireless, and developer-focused payment gateway Zwitch. Her strengths are not only in the creation of products but in Business Development, Strategic Alliances and Marketing as well. For instance, she played a major part in establishing the Cashnxt brand as a leading mobile payment solution, which gained recognition from major international and national media like the New York Times and ReadWriteWeb and was covered by a KPMG report presented at the Economic Times – Banking Technology conclave in Mumbai as well. Her latest achievement is the 'Top 20 Women in Fintech Award' at Fintegrate 2019, and her other significant honorable mentions include the ‘Top 75 startups in India to bet on' by Dare Magazine (2010 ) and 'Top 10 Product Technology Startups in India' at Headstart 2009. Her most noteworthy product innovations also include Vizflo - an NFC radio frequency payment platform for non-NFC phones for neartivity and apartmentgroups.in, an end-to-end social networking platform for apartment communities, which is available on web and smartphone platforms). With a solid gumption for building fintech goods for the betterment of society, Mabel currently leads Asia's first neo-banking startup Open, re-imagining business banking for SMEs in India.
Anjali Kumari - A Visionary Leader of Product Management
Anjali Kumari is the VP of Product Management at ThoughtSpot. She is an alumnus of Indian Business School and Purdue University with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing and strategy and a Master of Science in Computer Science. Anjali set sail in 2005 as an Associate Software Product Developer at Symphony Services. From startups to well-reputed firms, Anjali went from creating products to taking on leading roles to guide the development and management of products. Her capabilities began to shine at Capillary Technologies when she developed into an expert at product visioning and led the ideation and creation of the products to debut in the market. She knew what kind of product the customers wanted and the right one that fit the market like the back of her hand. Currently, she shares a four-year journey at ThoughSpot. While she leads product areas catering to the Business User persona, Anjali also passes on her knowledge to the Engineering & User Experience teams.
Madhuri Maram - Enabler of Creative Communities
Madhuri Maram is a Principal Product Designer of UXLABS, Head of Product of Nocoloco and Co-Founder & Product Design Instructor of Xperian. Madhuri is also a bearer of multiple roles, such as an entrepreneur, experience enabler and a teacher to designers and product makers. Very early on in her career, she grew from an illustrator to a User Experience Designer, indulging in the joy of offering great experiences through Insights & User Experience. Following that, she soon set out into the entrepreneurial world by co-founding her first company, Hireworthy, a platform encouraging real conversations & questions among designers and product managers. Then, she co-founded D+P, became a No-Code Founding Mentor & Teacher of On Deck and co-founded Silva Camp. Currently, she leads companies such as Xperian as its co-founder, the head of product at Nocoloco, and the principal product designer at UXLABS. Her inclination is more toward creating a community or an ecosystem that thrives on the creativity of product designers and makers. With UXLABS, she is enabling design experiences and interfaces for companies. She is passing on her knowledge around Digital Product Design (UI/UX) & No-code to Designers and Product Makers with Xperian and Nocoloco. She also lends her wisdom on design & no-code for early-stage startups.