About me

I’m Aakash — a product leader and builder based in Mumbai, working at the intersection of fintech, AI, and systems that have to hold up under real-world pressure.

I currently lead the lending origination platform, CRM, and AI charter at JSW One Finance, a digital-first NBFC serving India’s MSME ecosystem. Commercial lending here is 100% digital, lead to disbursement, and I’m one of the earliest product hires building that out:

Channel finance, vendor finance, and term loan origination
The lending API suite
The customer master that ties it all together

What I actually do

My work has a familiar rhythm, whatever the company:

Take an ambiguous problem and cut through the noise
Design the system around it
Drive adoption until it becomes second nature

It’s not just about taming chaos — it’s about giving teams the confidence and clarity to scale without losing their edge.

Across fintech, e-commerce, and insurance, I’ve shipped 0→1 products, led cross-functional teams, shaped complex integrations, and built workflows that survive contact with the real world:

JSW One MSME’s B2B marketplace — designed the core order-creation journey, with deep integrations across Salesforce, ERP, discounts, and pricing, supporting the business through its run to a $1B exit rate
Marsh — led BenefitsCircle and QoverPro, shipping embedded insurance programs for names like Amazon, Ashok Leyland, and Cleartrip
AutoO2 — co-founded a B2B claims SaaS platform for motor insurers, built and grew it to 500+ onboarded workshops, and won an equity-free grant from the Government of Maharashtra’s Mumbai Fintech program

What I’m doing right now

AI has become a core part of how I operate — not as a shortcut, but as mental leverage. It helps me think wider, test assumptions faster, and push further than I could working alone. At JSW One Finance that shows up directly: AI is one of the product groups I lead, and it’s genuinely at the core of some industry-first lending products we’re building right now.

I also wrote that idea into a book: Prompt engineering guide for product managers — a practical guidebook for AI-driven productivity, aimed at senior PMs and product leaders learning to work with tools like ChatGPT as more than a brainstorming shortcut. Published May 2025, available on Kindle.

What kind of person I am

I’m a systems thinker first:

Studied mechanical engineering and physics at BITS Pilani, then went back for an MBA at IMT Ghaziabad — a combination that probably explains why I default to structure before I default to opinion
Care about products that remain useful long after the initial launch: future-ready, adaptable, grounded in clear thinking rather than whatever’s trending that quarter
Have been the person building the company (AutoO2) and the person building inside one (JSW One, Marsh, VIP Industries) — both shape how I work now

I know what it costs to raise the first dollar and onboard the first customer with nothing but conviction, and I know what it takes to ship inside a large, fast-moving organisation without losing the plot. Most of what I write in Books comes out of sitting inside exactly that tension.