Gowtham Balakrishnan

Gowtham Balakrishnan Bangalore, Karnataka, India- 560001 | Email--www.linkedin.com/in/gowtham-balakrishnan | Mobile - SUMMARY Strategic and results-driven Senior Product Owner with 4+ years of experience leading ERP and SaaS products in agile environments. Proven expertise in backlog refinement, sprint planning, stakeholder alignment, and writing user stories with acceptance criteria. Skilled in facilitating squad ceremonies and aligning product execution with roadmap vision. Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps, Power BI, Salesforce and cross-squad coordination. Adept at transforming product strategy into actionable delivery that drives measurable business impact. EXPERIENCE Aptean | Bangalore, India Product Owner (July 2021 – March 2025)         Spearheaded ERP product strategy, driving a 10% increase in adoption and contributing to additional revenue. Defined and executed a feature roadmap, reducing time-to-market by 18% and increasing sprint velocity. Conducted market research & competitor analysis, prioritizing data-driven product decisions and boosting feature utilization by 15%. Partnered with UX/UI teams to enhance user workflows, leading to an increase in retention & engagement. Managed API integration initiatives with third-party platforms, including Salesforce, improving system compatibility and enhancing the customer onboarding experience. Collaborated with C-level executives and business teams, aligning product vision with long-term business goals. Led product backlog, sprint planning, and roadmap execution using and Azure DevOps; created epics, features, and detailed user stories with acceptance criteria; ensured alignment with Agile squads and facilitated release tracking. Designed and implemented KPI dashboards in Power BI and SQL, providing real-time insights for datadriven product prioritization. Karix | Bangalore, India Technical Support Engineer (July 2020 - March 2021)       Provisioned and configured new accounts, ensuring seamless operations through MySQL and Linux systems. Consistently met SLA targets, ensuring high-quality service and resolution times for international clients. Managed critical customer escalations, resolving L1/L2 technical issues and delegating L3 issues for swift resolution. Monitored the SMSC environment, ensuring optimal performance and proactively addressing technical issues using tools like Nagios and Grafana. Supported server and application monitoring, contributing to system stability and performance. Conducted root-cause analysis, providing detailed reports to clients and improving issue prevention strategies. Cyber Cell Gurugram Police, (Online) Cybersecurity Summer Internship (June 2021 - July 2021)    Conducted comprehensive security assessments using tools like OWASP ZAP, identifying vulnerabilities in web applications and providing actionable insights for security improvements. Investigated phishing and email fraud cases using email forensics tools, enhancing email security protocols. Assessed perimeter security with Nessus and OpenVAS, identifying vulnerabilities. Prompt Infotech | Coimbatore, India Junior Security Intern (Jan 2020 - July 2020)    Performed Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) on internal portals, identifying and remediating security flaws to ensure robust system protection. Used tools like Burp Suite, Nessus, and Wireshark to conduct security testing, improving the organization’s defense against potential exploits. Collaborated with cross-functional teams to implement security best practices and enhance application security. EDUCATION KUMARAGURU COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, COIMBATORE, TN Bachelor of Technology in Information Technology. June 2016 - April 2019 Academic Project:   Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (Embedded C) Hotel Reservation Portal (HTML, CSS, PHP) PSG POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE, COIMBATORE, TN Diploma in Computer Networking. June 2013 - April 2016 Academic Project:  Development of Virtual Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Model for Networking (Visual C#, MySQL) SKILLS Product Management & Agile: Roadmap Execution | Backlog Prioritization | Sprint Planning | OKRs & KPIs | Scrum & Kanban | Aha! | Jira | Product Vision & Strategy Business & Data Analytics: A/B Testing | SQL | Power BI | Market Research | Customer Insights | Experimentation | Salesforce Technical & SaaS Expertise: ERP | API Integrations | Cloud (Azure) | Azure DevOps | Cybersecurity | Risk & Compliance (ISO 27001, GDPR) Stakeholder Management: Cross-functional Collaboration | UX/UI Strategy | Go-To-Market (GTM) Planning | CLevel Communication Languages: Fluent: English, Tamil Conversational: Telugu, Kannada CERTIFICATIONS & COURSES      Agile Project Management – Coursera Technical Product Management – UpGrad Aha! Product Management Professional Certificate – Aha! & LinkedIn Learning Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) – EC-Council CCNA Routing & Switching – Cisco Networking Academy