Mandalam Karan profile photo 1 on Tal

Mandalam Karan

Product Manager building AI-enabled growth & execution systems

Greater Bengaluru Area

8+ years of work experience

Independent
Sep 20251 yrPresent

Mumbai

- Embedded within founder and leadership offices to identify high-friction execution and decision bottlenecks, translating ambiguous business problems into scoped product and system initiatives. - At Tribeca Developers, owned discovery, prioritization, and delivery of AI-enabled execution and reporting systems across legal, HR, and operations, replacing fragmented manual processes with structured, API-driven products adopted by leadership teams. - At Turing, worked hands-on with model training and evaluation workflows, building practical understanding of model behavior, quality tradeoffs, and reliability constraints through reinforcement learning setups, benchmarking, and evaluation loops. - Partnered directly with founders, CXOs, and technical stakeholders to define success metrics, run build vs buy decisions, and align system design with real operational and production constraints.
Rapchai
Jul 20251 yr 2 mosPresent

Bengaluru

- Founded and led MyThirdPlace, a 0→1 community and events discovery product, owning end-to-end product scope across problem discovery, roadmap definition, execution, and iteration. - Designed the core product systems spanning discovery, participation, moderation, and trust, with deliberate focus on lifecycle flows, governance, and operational clarity at scale. - Drove cross-functional execution across UX, backend, integrations, and automation, making explicit build vs buy tradeoffs to keep the product lean and extensible. - Introduced AI selectively as an execution layer for discovery support and operational workflows, prioritizing reliability, user trust, and post-launch learning over AI-first positioning.
Miles Education
Dec 20231 yr 9 mosAug 2025

Bangalore Urban

- Owned product strategy and delivery for AI-enabled growth and execution systems spanning marketing, sales, CRM, and analytics, operating at the intersection of business, product, and engineering. - Built and scaled GTM and CRM platforms handling ₹2Cr+/month in spend, improving lead quality by ~20%, reducing lead-to-meeting time by ~25%, and enabling consistent, measurable experimentation across channels. - Redesigned and productized the entire MarTech architecture, defining event-driven flows, data contracts, and orchestration across WhatsApp, email, web, CRM, and analytics; replaced fragmented, manual campaigns with a modular system used by growth, sales, and ops teams. - Led 0→1 development of SEO-first CMS, event, and scheduling products, built for self-serve use by non-technical teams, driving 3–5× organic growth and reducing time-to-launch by over 50%. - Introduced multi-modal AI-assisted workflows for analytics, content, and decision support within the marcomm and GTM stack, improving execution speed and signal quality.
AlmaBetter
Dec 20221 yrNov 2023

Bengaluru

- Owned the end-to-end events GTM product, defining the funnel, success metrics, and execution model from topic selection to post-event conversion, scaling average registrations 3x and driving ₹1Cr+ in revenue impact within a quarter. - Redesigned the lifecycle experience by removing high-friction steps and introducing data-backed improvements (pop-up forms, 1-click registration, lifecycle nudges), reducing drop-offs by ~25% and improving attendance quality. - Built and productized content and learning operations systems to standardize delivery across teams, creating a 7-week execution buffer and reducing execution errors by ~90%. - Designed and scaled a structured placement assistance product, defining learner journeys, stage-wise ownership, and escalation mechanisms, reducing average interviews-to-placement by 30& while significantly lowering manual coordination across learning and support teams.
upGrad
Sep 20202 yrs 3 mosNov 2022

Bengaluru

- Owned product discovery and iteration for learner-facing growth and engagement features across core programs, balancing learner experience, content quality, and business goals to sustain 4.5+ CSAT across cohorts. - Designed and shipped interactive learning and engagement enhancements (including modular content formats and experimentation-led nudges), improving learner engagement and completion metrics while reducing content delivery deviations by ~15%.
Capgemini
Jul 20182 yJul 2020

Mumbai

GitHub
@pingmepi

Mandalam’s AI Stack

claude
claude
codex
codex
langfuse
langfuse
n8n
n8n
huggingface
huggingface
LiteLLM
LiteLLM

Education

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

B.E.(Hons.), Computer Science and Engineering

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

20144 yrs2018

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Headline

Product Manager building AI-enabled growth & execution systems

About

I build products that sit directly on growth and execution paths, where customer problems, business outcomes, and system design intersect. Over 7+ years, I’ve worked across product, founders’ offices, and growth teams, owning end-to-end product charters spanning problem discovery, roadmap definition, execution, and iteration. My work typically starts with unclear goals, fragmented ownership, or leaky funnels, and ends with products and systems that scale. I’ve owned end-to-end product charters across discovery, prioritization, roadmap definition, and delivery for growth, CRM, and lifecycle products. In practice, this has meant leading cross-functional teams to ship 0→1 and 1→n products, including AI-enabled growth and CRM systems handling ₹2Cr+/month in spend, driving 20%+ improvements in lead quality and ~25% reductions in lead-to-meeting time; products contributing to >3× organic growth and ₹1Cr+ in incremental revenue; and automation-first workflows reducing manual effort by >70%. Across roles, a consistent theme in my work is judgment: prioritizing the right problems, making tradeoffs explicit, and knowing when structure beats speed, and when simplicity beats cleverness. I’m interested in building and scaling products where systems thinking, execution discipline, and thoughtful use of AI make a measurable difference. If you’re working on problems like this — or hiring for them — I’m always open to a focused conversation. 📩 DM me or email: kmandalam@gmail.com

Location

Greater Bengaluru Area

AI stack

claude

codex

langfuse

n8n

huggingface

LiteLLM

Work experience

Consultant | Product and AI at Independent, Sep 2025 - Present · 1 yr, Mumbai, - Embedded within founder and leadership offices to identify high-friction execution and decision bottlenecks, translating ambiguous business problems into scoped product and system initiatives. - At Tribeca Developers, owned discovery, prioritization, and delivery of AI-enabled execution and reporting systems across legal, HR, and operations, replacing fragmented manual processes with structured, API-driven products adopted by leadership teams. - At Turing, worked hands-on with model training and evaluation workflows, building practical understanding of model behavior, quality tradeoffs, and reliability constraints through reinforcement learning setups, benchmarking, and evaluation loops. - Partnered directly with founders, CXOs, and technical stakeholders to define success metrics, run build vs buy decisions, and align system design with real operational and production constraints.

Founding Product Manager (0→1 Product) at Rapchai, Jul 2025 - Present · 1 yr 2 mos, Bengaluru, - Founded and led MyThirdPlace, a 0→1 community and events discovery product, owning end-to-end product scope across problem discovery, roadmap definition, execution, and iteration. - Designed the core product systems spanning discovery, participation, moderation, and trust, with deliberate focus on lifecycle flows, governance, and operational clarity at scale. - Drove cross-functional execution across UX, backend, integrations, and automation, making explicit build vs buy tradeoffs to keep the product lean and extensible. - Introduced AI selectively as an execution layer for discovery support and operational workflows, prioritizing reliability, user trust, and post-launch learning over AI-first positioning.

Product Manager | CTO's Office at Miles Education, Dec 2023 - Aug 2025 · 1 yr 9 mos, Bangalore Urban, - Owned product strategy and delivery for AI-enabled growth and execution systems spanning marketing, sales, CRM, and analytics, operating at the intersection of business, product, and engineering. - Built and scaled GTM and CRM platforms handling ₹2Cr+/month in spend, improving lead quality by ~20%, reducing lead-to-meeting time by ~25%, and enabling consistent, measurable experimentation across channels. - Redesigned and productized the entire MarTech architecture, defining event-driven flows, data contracts, and orchestration across WhatsApp, email, web, CRM, and analytics; replaced fragmented, manual campaigns with a modular system used by growth, sales, and ops teams. - Led 0→1 development of SEO-first CMS, event, and scheduling products, built for self-serve use by non-technical teams, driving 3–5× organic growth and reducing time-to-launch by over 50%. - Introduced multi-modal AI-assisted workflows for analytics, content, and decision support within the marcomm and GTM stack, improving execution speed and signal quality.

Program Manager | Growth and Operations at AlmaBetter, Dec 2022 - Nov 2023 · 1 yr, Bengaluru, - Owned the end-to-end events GTM product, defining the funnel, success metrics, and execution model from topic selection to post-event conversion, scaling average registrations 3x and driving ₹1Cr+ in revenue impact within a quarter. - Redesigned the lifecycle experience by removing high-friction steps and introducing data-backed improvements (pop-up forms, 1-click registration, lifecycle nudges), reducing drop-offs by ~25% and improving attendance quality. - Built and productized content and learning operations systems to standardize delivery across teams, creating a 7-week execution buffer and reducing execution errors by ~90%. - Designed and scaled a structured placement assistance product, defining learner journeys, stage-wise ownership, and escalation mechanisms, reducing average interviews-to-placement by 30& while significantly lowering manual coordination across learning and support teams.

Product Strategist at upGrad, Sep 2020 - Nov 2022 · 2 yrs 3 mos, Bengaluru, - Owned product discovery and iteration for learner-facing growth and engagement features across core programs, balancing learner experience, content quality, and business goals to sustain 4.5+ CSAT across cohorts. - Designed and shipped interactive learning and engagement enhancements (including modular content formats and experimentation-led nudges), improving learner engagement and completion metrics while reducing content delivery deviations by ~15%.

Associate Consultant at Capgemini, Jul 2018 - Jul 2020 · 2 y, Mumbai

Education

B.E.(Hons.), Computer Science and Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

Public links

github: https://github.com/pingmepi