—— PRODUCT LEADER · ECOMMERCE & RETAIL · 20 YEARS

Solving hard problems at scale for organisations and making the people around me better.

Twenty years building across eCommerce and retail — Walmart, eBay, Infosys Consulting, GE. I came up through analytics and consulting before moving into product management, which means I've sat on both sides of the problem: building the models and running the campaigns before I was ever deciding why and what to build. Supply chain, customer experience, marketplace, personalisation, CRM, cross-border — I've covered the full lifecycle deliberately, because I wanted to understand the ecosystem end to end, not just own one slice of it.

What drives me is solving problems that genuinely matter to the organisation — rallying a team around a shared goal, owning the hard parts together, and feeling a real responsibility for how everyone grows through it. The outcome matters, but so does making sure every person comes out more capable and hungry for the next challenge. I'm a builder at heart — there's always something I'm experimenting with, and staying close to what new technologies make possible keeps that sharp.


Where I've built
Walmart
2017 – 2026
Bengaluru & Sunnyvale
Director of Product — Customer Care, Post Purchase & Returns
2022 – 2026 · Reporting to VP · 16 PMs
Started with Customer Care; mandate expanded to include Post Order Experience, Transactional Communications and OMS (2024) and Returns (2025) — reflecting growing accountability across the end-to-end post-purchase experience. Rated Exemplary two years running.
  • Delivered 200M+ USD GMV lift across Canada, Mexico, and Chile by leading the consolidation of 5 independent markets — each running its own Post Order Experience, OMS, FMS, Communications and Customer Care stack — into a single global platform. Unlocked through global prioritisation, operational changes, and market-specific customisation for legal and compliance nuances.
  • Rebuilt the customer care bot from a traditional NLU to an AI-based system — lifting resolution rate from 27% to 53% across a contact surface that covers 10% of all orders, averaging 8 minutes per contact.
  • Cut average handling time by 9% by replacing an SOP-based model with guided workflows — removing native knowledge dependencies and manual lookups, so agents could serve customers faster and more consistently.
  • Built an order lifecycle monitoring tool that identifies exactly where stuck orders break down — across stores, FCs, OMS, and FMS — and either resolves them directly or alerts the right operator, PM, or support engineer. Reduced stuck order rate from 1.2% to 0.7%.
GPM — Promise, Sourcing & Supply Chain
2019 – 2022 · Reporting to Senior Director · 8 PMs
Started with Promise and Sourcing for Mexico and Canada; mandate expanded to include Inventory Management (2020) and Warehouse Management (2021) — reflecting growing accountability across the end-to-end supply chain.
  • Replaced manual promise accuracy processes with transit and processing time models — lifting accuracy from 47% to 74%, a 20bps top-line lift, and a 3% NPS gain.
  • Launched a middle mile pathing capability to leverage DC-store transportation for eCommerce order delivery — enabling store pickup and last mile handover, reducing cost to serve by 17% in Mexico.
  • Delivered 7% improvement in picking efficiency (units per hour) by optimising yard management, allocation and voice based picking.
Staff Product Manager
2017 – 2019 · Reporting to Director
Focused on three distinct areas — Cross Border Trade, Cart and Checkout, and Customer Experience for Walmart US — operating largely as a startup within a large org.
  • Conceptualised and launched the end-to-end cross border fulfillment model at Walmart — covering order capture, restricted party checks, taxes and customs duties, cross border warehousing and last mile via local carriers. Launched Sam's US on Walmart CA, Myntra on Walmart MX, and Walmart CA on Rakuten Japan — generating 70K new customers, a 2.5X ROI, and a projected 150M USD revenue impact over three years.
  • Drove 14% conversion uplift in Mexico and 7% in Canada through Cart and Checkout redesign — introducing similar item and substitution recommendations, geo-fencing for accurate inventory on cart, and a single page one-click checkout.
  • Launched Walmart eBooks as a new category for Walmart US — projected at 25M USD in two years with a halo effect of 125K new customers to the platform.
eBay
2013 – 2017
Sunnyvale
Senior Manager — First Party Advertising & Personalisation
2013 – 2017
Focused on product analytics and product management in the buyer experience, personalisation and advertising areas.
  • Launched Promoted Listings — a first party advertising product that lets sellers promote across the funnel, charging on sale via last click attribution. Closed year 1 at 20M USD, with a trajectory to 150M USD by year 3.
  • Built Similar, Complementary, and Discovery algorithms alongside the personalisation team — contributing to a 1.6% improvement in conversion and GMB over two years.
  • Led the iPhone channel — a 7B USD business spanning multiple verticals — through app releases 3.3 and 3.4, coordinating across product, engineering, and commercial teams.
Infosys Consulting
2008 – 2013
Bengaluru & Sunnyvale
Consultant → Senior Consultant — Strategic Insights & Analytics
2008 – 2013
Focused on growing the analytics practice by solving challenges for retail clients across Replenishment, CRM and assortment areas.
  • Grew a client engagement from $20K/month to $1.2M/year through inventory work — reducing out-of-stock and excess stock via smarter allocation, delivering a 13x improvement in gross margin contribution ($1.5M/year).
  • Led a 14-week analytics pilot for a US specialty footwear retailer that generated $300K in top-line growth and opened a $2.3M follow-on opportunity.
  • Helped a major German retailer build their consumer DNA — profiling customers to enable personalisation and sharper value propositions across their base.
GE Analytics
2005 – 2008
Bengaluru
Consultant — Direct Marketing & Analytics
2005 – 2008
Focused on PLCC and marketing analytics building risk and response models.
  • Ran direct marketing campaigns for a PLCC portfolio of 60M customers and 180M prospects across the US — covering acquisition, lifecycle, and retention with selection strategies and post-campaign analysis throughout.
  • Built an acquisition model within marketing budget and inventory constraints that delivered a $200K bottom-line impact.

Still building

Building isn't something I switch on when the day job allows — it's just how I'm wired. These came out of problems I'd seen up close and couldn't let go of. Going end-to-end on my own — from problem to shipped product — is how I stay close to what's actually hard and what new technologies can genuinely change.

Real-time Inventory Sync
SHIPPED
Built to solve the under and overselling problem that hits multi-location retailers hard. Syncs inventory across stores and warehouses in real time so stock levels are accurate wherever an order comes in — whether that's a store, a DC, or an online channel.
Post-Order Lifecycle Debug Tool
SHIPPED
Anyone who's worked in fulfilment knows the pain of an order that just stops moving. This surfaces exactly where in the post-order journey things have broken down — across stores, FCs, OMS, and FMS — so teams can act fast instead of digging through logs.
Career Path Tool for Kids
IN PROGRESS
A way for kids to explore what they might want to be when they grow up — built to be fun first, educational second. They get to play around with different paths, see where they lead, and come away with a sense of what's out there. A bit different from the other two, but just as deliberate.

What I'm looking for
01
Places where people actually matter
I've worked in teams that said they valued people and teams that actually did. The difference shows up everywhere — in the work, in the energy, in what people are willing to do.
02
Problems worth losing sleep over
I'm most useful when the problem is genuinely hard and actually matters to customers. Give me something messy and real over something clean and incremental.
03
A north star people believe in
I want to understand where we're going and why. Not looking for comfort — just a direction that's honest and worth running toward.
04
Room to follow the problem
I work best when I can move across the problem space.

Outside work
National Swimmer & Triathlete National Powerlifter Dad to two boys — outnumbered and loving it

Let's connect
harishv.akella@gmail.com linkedin.com/in/harish-akella +91 739 656 5830