Karthik Rao

About Karthik Rao

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) and results-driven Product Manager with 8+ years of experience delivering customer-centric digital products across FinTech, SaaS, and e-commerce domains. Proven expertise leading end-to-end product delivery across digital payments, credit card processing, merchant services, and consumer lending platforms, managing multiple concurrent products from strategy and roadmap definition to execution, launch, and optimization across web and mobile platforms. Experienced in Agile, Scrum, and SAFe environments, with strong ownership of product backlogs, roadmap execution, and KPI-driven prioritization, incorporating customer feedback and defect management to deliver scalable, high-quality products. Demonstrated success managing the full product lifecycle—from product strategy and vision to go-to-market execution and post-launch optimization—through cross-functional collaboration with engineering, UX, marketing, risk, compliance, and business stakeholders Strong focus on data-driven decision-making, customer experience, and operational efficiency, with a proven ability to manage competing priorities across multiple products, align stakeholders, and deliver measurable business outcomes in regulated financial environments.

Experience

1. Product Manager

   Discover

   Aug 2023 — Present · Chicago, IL, US

   Focused on leading the end-to-end product strategy and delivery of multiple customer-facing digital banking products at Discover Financial Services. The initiative spanned web and mobile platforms, encompassing online banking, credit card account management, digital payments, mobile app enhancements, and customer self-service capabilities. The objective was to improve customer engagement, operational efficiency, and satisfaction while ensuring regulatory compliance in a highly regulated financial services environment. By managing multiple concurrent products, coordinating cross-functional teams, and applying Agile and SAFe practices, the project delivered measurable improvements in engagement, efficiency, and delivery predictability for millions of Discover customers.Achievements: Successfully launched redesigned customer activity and notification experiences across multiple digital banking products (online banking, card management, and mobile app), driving a 28% increase in daily active engagement within the first 3 months. Improved digital alert and messaging click-through rates by 35% across banking and payments experiences through personalized prioritization based on customer behavior and account activity. Reduced customer-reported issues across digital banking alerts and self-service features by 40% by partnering with engineering teams on performance improvements, reliability enhancements, and release quality controls. Increased cross-platform feature adoption by 22% across multiple digital banking products by introducing intuitive onboarding and contextual guidance for customers managing their financial accounts. Spearheaded AI-driven prioritization of financial alerts and communications across digital banking products, resulting in a 15% increase in customer satisfaction scores measured via post-interaction surveys.

Education

• Osmania University

  Bachelor of Technology - BTech, Computer Science