University of Toronto

University of Ottawa

American University of Sharjah

Product and PreSales Leader at VoPay

Greater Vancouver Metropolitan Area

VoPay

VP Product & Sales Engineering

Working with high-growth fintech's to help them expand in to new markets, accelerate revenue growth, find product-market fit, and identify and improve internal operational challenges as they look to level up. I consult with businesses that operate in payments, blockchain, lending and back-office automation (receivables, payables, capital markets) domains.

Proof of Growth Consulting

Founder, Lead Consultant

After a phenomenal 3 years at Versapay and a successful exit to private equity, I joined another Canadian fintech Katipult, to be able to help the team level up in their go-to market efforts selling in to large financial institutions and investment banks. With less than 40 teammates, I wear multiple hats including our content and marketing strategy, product marketing as well as working with late-stage prospects to articulate the benefits of the product.

-  Made an immediate impact to the team by securing government funding of $50K for various GTM initiatives within days of joining
-  Published several key artifacts including those related to company narrative and ROI that directly resulted in securing the business of our largest customers with revenue contributions of ~1M ARR
-  Initiated and executed two key product partnerships end-to-end in the payments and KYC space
-  Created highly targeted prospect lists of ~500 US and ~100 Canadian financial services firms so as to rally the company behind our key objectives

Katipult (TSXV: FUND)

Vice President Solutions Engineering

Versapay had just been acquired and had to quickly scale up in all areas which including growing the product team 3x in a short period of time. I was promoted to run product and to leverage the many years of accounts receivable and payments domain knowledge acquired in client-facing roles to drive the team to the next level.

-  Orchestrated led the team's pivot from a top-heavy decision-making process to one that had smart product managers taking more ownership of product delivery
-  Consistently rated as one of the top leaders at the company with a highly engaged team that set the example for other teams
-  Led strategy and design processes as we went from a single product to five products on different tech stacks
-  Positioned Versapay as a thought leader in the AR space while continuously articulating our differentiation to the market and internal stakeholders
-  Built the relationship and architectural foundation for successful product partnerships with tier-1 entities like Mastercard, RBC and US Bank

VersaPay

Vice President Of Product Management

After having informally led the solutions engineering team, I was now formally able to build a team that could change Versapay's status as a niche product to something that is seen as essential for the accounting back office. My goal as a leader was to build in a way that did not forever require my involvement to be successful.

-  My team and I were instrumental in Versapay going from 3M in ARR to 10M in under 2 years with a high degree of cohesion between sales reps and solutions engineers
-  For each vertical of interest (real estate, CPG distribution, etc.) we created purpose built demo environments that showcased the product in it's best light in specific scenarios
-  Created the conditions for complete dominance in the CRE vertical through highly specific demos, technology artifacts and ROI material - this led to Versapay being the ubiquitous A/R product for CRE
-  Built a team of solutions engineers with balanced and complementary skills necessary for diverse target personas across US, Canada and Mexico

Director Solutions Engineering (Pre-Sales)

- Two-time winner of top employee award (VersaChamp) in a short timespan
-  Work breakdown: 60% pre-sales, 20% solution architecture, 20% web & project development
-  Support direct and channel sales teams to deliver advanced product demonstrations
-  Articulate product to client stakeholder’s specific to their domain and business applicability
-  Lead the formulation and communication of the integration strategy between ARC and the prospects’ current systems
-  Interface with Product Management to convey client requirements and to refine product roadmap
-  Understand the competitive landscape in depth, and help the sales force articulate ARC’s differentiation against the competition
-  Build web based tools that can be leveraged by prospective clients as well as internal teams during the sales cycle in order to better gauge product value
-  Lead the effort with RFI and RFP proposals

Solutions Engineer

After having directly contributed to an increase in sales for the company, a greater degree of efficiency was required from the delivery side of the organization. I stepped up to the challenge as a team lead by re-architecting pre-sales, support & implementation processes so as to maximize the throughput of each of these teams.

-  Created a cadence of bi-weekly company wide product education sessions that increased employee engagement and product knowledge while further cementing my role as the go-to person for anyone that is stuck
-  Led the company's transition to formal help-desk tools like Zendesk that led to an increase in NPS scores as more clients felt the company became more responsive
-  Surpassed the contractual support SLA's by over 50% thereby allowing for more strict SLA's to be put in place resulting in an easier sell for the sales teams

Q-nomy, Inc.

Team Lead, Sales and Support Engineering

Soon after joining Q-nomy, I became a go-to resource for several internal stakeholders and clients as I gained deep expertise in the implementation of an enterprise solution that that performed workflow automation for schools, universities and hospitals. I originally started as an implementation consultant but was soon asked to provide my expertise for support teams as well as product demos (pre-sales).

-  Managed two complex implementations per month including large hospitals and universities that required on-site travel and technical set up of server components (Azure, IIS, SQL Server, Reporting Services, Analysis Services)
-  Received consistently high user satisfaction ratings (4.5+) for implementation and training deliverables from executive and non-executive stakeholders
-  Meaningfully contributed to the closing of 8 large enterprise deals resulting in 5MM in revenue in the middle of implementing and supporting existing clients

Sales and Support Engineer

- Work breakdown: 50% incident analysis, 30% client communication, 20% documentation
-  Responsible for delivering business-to-business application support to enterprise clients using
issue tracking and reporting tools such as Parature
-  Perform root cause analysis through low level investigations in a SQL Server / .NET environment
-  Coordinate with internal development (using Team Foundation Server), QA and professional
services teams to deliver solutions to clients
-  Reproduce and document software defects while providing clients with temporary solutions
- Gain in-depth domain knowledge of human capital management and payroll through working
with SaaS applications such as Dayforce HCM

Ceridian

Technical Application Analyst

- Work breakdown: 30% planning and requirements, 40% development, 15% user
experience, 15% server administration
-  Participate in the planning and strategy of a perks platform in a bootstrapped environment
-  Actively elicit system requirements through discussions with internal staff and clients
-  Develop a scalable business perks application using LAMP stack technologies
-  Maintain a key focus on user experience through user interface iterations
-  Set up and administer the Azure environment responsible for hosting the platform
-  Gain experience in understanding the life-cycle of a startup

Epic Perks

Software Consultant

- Work breakdown: 75% consulting, 25% tutoring
-  Work with entrepreneurs and individuals to provide advice and guidance in terms
of creating, maintaining and upgrading their software solutions
-  Provide technical and programming information to individuals looking for advanced tutoring in
the use of web technologies

IT consultant Self Employed

Independent Software Consultant

- Work breakdown: 50% development, 25% team management, 25% client liaison
-  Lead developer for the web application Ventus, a bilingual student services and relationship
management application, used university-wide by staff, students, and professors
-  Used MySQL, PHP, HTML 5, CSS 3, JavaScript and Git to build several software solutions
-  Lead stakeholder liaison in gathering requirements and ensuring client satisfaction
-  Primary technical contact for the external purchases and collaborators of Ventus
-  Assist with the hiring, training and mentoring of junior developers
-  Work with marketing team to develop promotional content for Ventus
-  Experienced in the use of Web Experience Toolkit (WET) for accessible web sites

Lead Software Analyst/Developer

- Work breakdown: 50% app development, 50% contribute to open source frameworks
-  Top contributor to open source projects such as the BlackBerry WebWorks framework
-  Working as part of the Developer Relations team and helping with the development of user
interface components and API’s for the BlackBerry 10 Operating System platform
-  Used HTML 5, CSS 3, jQuery Mobile and Git to implement dynamic interface components
-  Involved in the development of open source applications for the BlackBerry 10 platform- applications that will be used as part of a toolkit for future application developers

BlackBerry

Developer Intern

- Work breakdown: 80% development, 10% requirements gathering, 10% testing
-  Work on developing various custom web applications such as Ventus under the guidance of
senior developers using MySQL, PHP, HTML 5, JavaScript and CSS 3
-  Learn and use LAMP stack technologies such as Apache, MySQL and PHP 5
-  Assist senior developers in the requirements elicitation process
-  Assist senior developers through the application testing and deployment processes

Software Developer

- Work breakdown: 50% administrative assistance, 50% technical support
-  Played a key role in assisting the Universal Bus Pass (uPass) program coordinator with the printing and distribution of bus passes
-  Provided assistance to the program coordinator in terms of dealing with clients in high pressure situations
-  Provided technical and equipment support to the program coordinator and colleagues

Karan Khiani

Karan Khiani