---
title: "Sankara Narayanan - Senior Product Manager in Chennai | Tal"
description: "Meet Sankara Narayanan, AI Agents for Spend Management | Supply Chain Products | Ex-Ninjacart, TechStory based in Chennai. AI stack includes claude code, cursor, and lovable. Explore public work links including medium."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/sankara-narayanan-1/share-image"
---

# Sankara Narayanan on Tal

## Headline

AI Agents for Spend Management \| Supply Chain Products \| Ex\-Ninjacart, TechStory

## About

9\+ years across Product, Supply Chain, Operations, and Logistics\. Currently Senior Product Manager at Freehand \(formerly Pando\), building agentic AI for freight procurement and expanding into horizontal AP automation\. I own the roadmap for a multi\-modal freight procurement platform, leading a pod of engineers, QAs, and consultants from discovery through delivery\. Beyond strategy, I build hands\-on including self\-learning agent infrastructure and reconciliation agents\. Before this, I spent 3 years at Ninjacart \(India's largest agri\-tech platform\) building transportation management systems \(middle\-mile and last\-mile\), warehouse management systems, cross\-border trade commerce, and a B2B neo\-banking product for supply chain stakeholders\. Earlier, I led Operations at TechStory Media, a tech/startup\-focused media platform, and worked across Chennai's startup ecosystem with Google Startup Weekend, Startup Grind, TiE Chennai, and HeadStart\.

## Location

Chennai

## AI stack

claude code

cursor

lovable

notion

openai

Fireflies\.ai

## Work experience

Senior Product Manager at Freehand, Mar 2026 \- Oct 2026 · 8 mos, Chennai, 1\. Architected a self\-learning agent infrastructure that automatically incorporates verified user corrections, with a human\-in\-the\-loop layer for edge cases which reduced latency by 30% and improved accuracy by 10% 2\. Running live client prototyping sessions using an internal agent studio, closing the loop from discovery to production faster from 3 weeks to 2 days\. 3\. Actively engaged with Chennai's product community, exchanging ideas with peers on solving applied AI challenges in enterprise contexts\.

Senior Product Manager at Pando, Feb 2025 \- Feb 2026 · 1 yr 1 mo, Chennai, 1\. Building AI agents for multi\-modal freight procurement, extending platform capability across new modes and workflows\. 2\. Built an AI\-driven invoice reconciliation agent that resolves exception\-bucket invoices without manual intervention\. 3\. Continued as pre\-sales SME and implementation partner, supporting client go\-lives on the rebuilt platform\. 4\. Led a cross\-functional pod through discovery, delivery, and rollout for enterprise freight clients

Product Manager at Pando, May 2023 \- Feb 2025 · 1 yr 10 mos, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 1\. Building Pando Procure \- a multi\-modal freight procurement platform shippers\. 2\. Managing roadmap and prioritizing backlogs while working with a team of engineers\+QAs on sprint grooming, planning and delivery process\. 3\. Enabling the pre\-sales team with platform capabilities during demos and function as subject matter expert during client calls\. 4\. Supporting the implementation team in blueprinting and quickly addressing gaps to ensure timely client go\-lives across projects\.

Associate Product Manager at Ninjacart, Dec 2021 \- May 2023 · 1 yr 6 mos, Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India, 1\. Managed the internal supply chain product suite for the International Partnership Program\. 2\. Conducted market research to understand product opportunities in agri\-reseller ecosystem\. 3\. Designed and developed neobanking web app that enables users to manage contacts, make bulk payments, create contracts in bulk and also have team management flows\. 4\. Managed commerce enablement platform that helps users in search and discovery of agri products in cross border trade\. 5\. Built order managing system for importers and exporters to have visibility over their inventory, documents and payments flow in a single platform\. 7\. Developed TradeDesk as a platform for traders to negotiate and digitize the unstructured information during creation and execution of orders\.

Project Manager at Ninjacart, Apr 2021 \- Nov 2021 · 8 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, 1\. Reduced asset losses by addressing gaps and arresting leakages in existing product flows\. 2\. Business process re\-engineering in B2C business unit by introducing new warehouse management products to build visibility, track and improve supply chain performance metrics\. 3\. Drafted the NLML Playbook which is used as logistics cost attribution guide for company's P&L calculation\. 3\. Developed Network optimization models and ran simulations which resulted in 10% reduction of overall supply chain cost for B2B business unit\. 4\. Benchmarked last mile route planning product by sourcing, planning and testing against third party vendors\. 5\. Defined the transportation cost rule book for supply paths across India and set the ceiling price for individual lanes\.

Management Trainee at Ninjacart, Jun 2020 \- Mar 2021 · 10 mos, Managed P&L projects that are key to the organization\. 1\. Ensured OTIF metrics were above 90% for regrading project in 45\+ centers across India\. 2\. Changed over 150 distribution centers to 3 feet capabilities, to reduce unloading time at each facility by 60% on an average\. 3\. Implemented Route Planning tool which resulted in 10% cost saving in middle mile logistics\. 4\. Redesigned supply chain processes through new product implementations to ensure 100% on time dispatch and also maintain fulfilment rate over 99%\.

Head of Operations at Techstory\.in, Apr 2016 \- May 2018 · 2 yrs 2 mos, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 1\. Created a standard operating procedure that would ease the decision making process and ensure scalability of the organization\. 2\. Planned and implemented the content strategy and ensured that the deadlines are met by the content team\. 3\. Oversaw the digital marketing activities across platforms\. 4\. Increased the number of articles under guest contributor platform\. 5\. Identified potential clients, nurtured them and engaged with the customers at different buckets of the sales pipeline\. 6\. Actively worked on client projects to ensure that the customer service expectations are met\. 7\. Launched and managed TechStory's proprietary events wing that increased the number of touch points with the audience\. 8\. Partnered in major entrepreneurial events attended by influencers in the startup ecosystem and actively networked to grow the TechStory community\.

Content Developer at Techstory\.in, Jun 2015 \- Mar 2016 · 10 mos, 1\. Created and curated content for the target audience\. 2\. Distributed the content across social media channels to drive audience for the portal\. 3\. Attended events to promote visibility for the company and networked with people from relevant industries\.

## Education

Master of Business Administration \- MBA, Operations Management, Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management \- SIOM

Master's degree, International Business, Leeds Beckett University

## Public links

- medium: https://medium\.com/@sankarnarayanan

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/sankara-narayanan-1)

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