Headline

Strategy and Operations Leader | Chief of Staff to Founders and CEOs

About

For close to a decade, I have worked alongside founders in venture backed companies, joining at the point where ambiguity is highest and structure is missing, and building the strategy, operations, and systems that take a company to its next stage. Most recently I have done this as Chief of Staff. The businesses could not be more different. Payments at Instamojo. Vernacular consumer tech at Vokal, which went on to become Koo. Health and wellness at LiveAltLife and OMI. Conversational AI at LimeChat. And a global manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and sustainability group at STEER World. The contexts change, but the work stays the same. I walk into the noise, find the signal, and turn it into outcomes. Revenue scaled. Operations built from zero. A loss making business brought back to profitability. Large teams hired and led. The OKRs and operating rhythms that make a company actually run. Over time I realised something about myself. I am not driven by scale for its own sake. I am drawn to clarity and impact. To finding what matters, shaping it, and helping the people around me see it too. That is what I optimise for. The founders I have worked beside trusted me with their hardest problems, and I have learned as much about judgment and life from them as I have about business. I am at my best next to a founder or leadership team building something that matters, owning the messy space between strategy and execution and bringing order to it. If that sounds like your world, let us talk. I'm at agarwalankit@outlook.com.

Location

Bengaluru

AI stack

antigravity

claude code

claude

gemini

openai

Work experience

Chief of Staff, Executive Leadership Team at STEER World, Sep 2023 - Nov 2024 · 1 y 2 mo, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, STEER is a global conglomerate that its founder, Dr. Babu Padmanabhan, a globally recognised scientist and technologist, has built over three decades, spanning manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and sustainability. As Chief of Staff, I partner with the founder on the group's most important bets. • Led the turnaround of a loss making pharmaceutical business to breakeven and set a clear path to profitability. • Drove the launch of a new sustainable materials venture, ending legacy partnerships, backing senior hiring, and enabling its first market showcases. • Aligned the group with the founder and CXOs through cross functional initiatives across digital, hiring, and governance to drive growth.

Founders Fellow (ODF13) at On Deck, Jun 2022 - Jun 2023 · 1 yr 1 mo, Selected as one of 35 global fellows from 15 countries for the On Deck Founders Fellowship, an acceptance rate below 1.8%. On Deck is a global community of founders and operators whose alumni have gone on to found more than 1,000 companies. It offered a $125,000 investment to each fellow regardless of their venture's stage, including pre-traction, pre-team, or even pre-idea. The program now emphasizes extensive support through mentorship and a global network of investors.

Chief Of Staff at LimeChat, Jan 2022 - Dec 2022 · 1 yr, LimeChat is a Y Combinator backed conversational AI company (W21), founded by Nikhil Gupta and Aniket Bajpai (IIT Delhi) and backed by Stellaris Venture Partners, Pi Ventures, and Titan Capital. As Chief of Staff, I worked with the founders through the company's scaling phase. • Drove key initiatives that contributed to a 4.4x ARR increase within 9 months. • Rebuilt onboarding into a scalable process that cut implementation time by 60%, improving retention and readiness to scale. • Introduced OKRs and KPIs across the company and drove leadership hiring and cultural alignment through rapid growth.

Head of Strategy & Operations at OMI, Nov 2020 - Jan 2022 · 1 yr 3 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, OMI was a wellness platform backed by Nexus Venture Partners and Titan Capital, founded by Prashan Agarwal (former CEO of Gaana and cofounder of PropTiger) and Aniket Lila (formerly Nexus Venture Partners). I worked alongside the founders to build and scale the company. • Built and led the operations, quality, and customer experience function from scratch to support 30K+ monthly consultations. • Hired and led a team of 80+ across operations and consulting, achieving a 38% repeat rate, ahead of industry benchmarks. • Collaborated with product to launch chat, audio, and video consultation features that accelerated platform growth.

Strategy and Operations (Core Team) at LiveAltlife, Apr 2019 - Oct 2020 · 1 yr 7 mos, Greater Bengaluru Area, LiveAltLife is a pioneering health and wellness company focused on lifestyle diseases, founded by Vivek Subramanyam (founder of Fintellix, acquired by NASDAQ listed Verisk). As part of the early team, I led strategy, operations, and program delivery with the founder. • Designed and ran disease focused pilots that converted 70% of trial users into paying subscribers. • Built last mile delivery and logistics systems to support the scale of subscription wellness programs. • Developed and led an integrated fitness and wellness program combining exercise, yoga, and meditation, with strong engagement.

Partnerships and Growth (Founding Team) at Vokal India, Apr 2018 - Nov 2018 · 7 mo, Bengaluru, Vokal was a vernacular Q&A platform, which later became Koo, backed by Accel, Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, and Shunwei Capital. I was part of the core founding team, working alongside founders Aprameya Radhakrishna (TaxiForSure) and Mayank Bidawatka (RedBus). • Built the community function from the ground up, scaling the user base to 500K through partnerships with subject matter experts across education, entertainment, and current affairs. • Strengthened the platform experience and engagement through user feedback loops with product and engineering.

Business Development & Partnerships Lead at Instamojo, Jun 2015 - Mar 2017 · 1 y 9 mo, Bengaluru, Instamojo was a payments platform for small and medium businesses, backed by Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, and 500 Startups. I worked with cofounder Akash Gehani and the founding team. • Drove 5x GMV growth through inbound and outbound sales and partner led channels. • Built a channel partnership program that grew into 10% of overall GMV.