# Ashok Bania > SVP Product & Growth @ SoundCloud | Scaling Global Marketplaces & SaaS | P&L Leader | AI-Driven Digital Transformation Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/ashokbania Product and General Management Executive with over 20 years of experience scaling global consumer and creator platforms. I have owned P&Ls exceeding $XXXM+ ARR and led multi-functional organizations across Product, Engineering, Growth, Marketing, and Operations. Throughout my career at SoundCloud, Spotify, Lyft, and Headspace, Yahoo and Aol I have focused on: Driving Profitability: Led SoundCloud to its first profitable year through a rigorous focus on unit economics, pricing strategies, and AI-driven operational efficiency. Scaling Global Marketplaces: Expert in navigating the complexities of two-sided marketplaces, specifically within Artist Services, content operations, and global distribution at SoundCloud and Tumblr and Drivers/Riders at Lyft. Product-Led Growth (PLG): Proven track record of building high-performing growth teams and implementing data-driven conversion loops that significantly increase subscriber bases at companies like Headspace, Spotify and SoundCloud. AI Transformation: Architecting AI-first product strategies that automate workflows and deliver personalized user experiences at scale. I am a regular contributor to the product community, sharing insights on Product Management, Leadership, Growth, AI and B2B SaaS Growth Strategies. My leadership style prioritizes effectiveness over being right, fostering collaborative cultures that deliver high-impact business outcomes. ## Work Experience ### Senior Vice President Product & Growth @ SoundCloud Jan 2024 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States Accountability: Revenue, # of subscribers and # of active creators and fans Strategic Advisor to the CEO: Report to and serve as a strategic advisor to the CEO on product, operations and GTM with a recent focus on AI transformation. Serve as a key strategic partner on product-led growth (PLG) and revenue diversification across our global creator and listener/fan marketplace network. AI Transformation: Championed AI-first initiatives to scale creator services and automate content operations, improving organizational efficiency. Executive Leadership: Product Organization, Artist Services, Content Operations and Customer Experience teams ### SVP Product & Growth, Creator @ SoundCloud Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco, California, United States New Emerging Products and Business: Led the creation of artist commerce business (fan and creator engagement and commerce) enabling artists to generate supplementary income. Experimented with and validated cutting-edge music technologies, including Gen AI and Web3 (with a focus on community and NFT applications). Expand SoundCloud's value proposition by fostering partnerships and early access programs. Executive Leadership: Managed SoundCloud's Global Product Division and executive sponsor for Queerclouders (SoundCloud's LGBTQIA+ community) ### VP Product & Growth, Creator @ SoundCloud Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco, California, United States Strategic Profitability: Architected the product and growth strategy that led SoundCloud to its first year of annual profitability. P&L Ownership: Directly managed a multi-million dollar P&L ($XXXM+ ARR), optimizing unit economics across subscriptions and marketplace services. Marketplace Scaling: Led a multi-functional organization of Product, Engineering, and Growth teams to scale a global two-sided marketplace for millions of artists. Executive Leadership - Supported product, product marketing, design, UX and data analysts in pursuit of our mission to help artists with their creations and their career. ### Advisor @ Yuna.io Jan 2023 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States Advising the team on personalized digital wellbeing using AI. ### Mentor & Operator @ Antler Jan 2022 – Present Help start-up founders with anything they need from my experience - ideas of testing a hypothesis to GTM strategies. I help founder zoom into specifics of execution. ### Featured Speaker at Product School @ Product School Jan 2018 – Present Speak mostly about #early-stage #zerotoone #0to1 #growth #productmanagement etc. Product School is a global leader in Product Management training with a community of over one million product professionals. As a featured speaker, I help inspire the next generation of Product Managers to create innovative products and apply best practices in their work ### Advisor, Product and Technical @ Expectful Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 Helped the CEO and the product team with strategy. Acquired by Babylist. ### VP Product, Design, Data Science and Engineering @ Tumblr Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco, California, United States Organizational Leadership: Directed a multi-disciplinary organization of 100+ across Product Management, Data Science, and Trust & Safety, reporting to the CEO. Revenue Growth & Brand Safety: Re-architected the platform’s Brand Safety framework, which directly unblocked stalled enterprise advertising spend and increased premium advertiser retention by [X%]. Revenue Diversification: Pioneered Tumblr’s shift toward a multi-modal revenue model by piloting and launching the platform’s first Creator Subscription products, establishing a new recurring revenue stream for the business. Data Science & ML: Led the Data Science function to integrate advanced AI into the core feed, driving a [X%] lift in user engagement through personalized discovery. We piloted and adopted embeddings in Machine Learning and improved recommendations quality and engagement by 20% driven by longer feed sessions, more dwell time on posts and more engagement actions such as save/share/comment/reblogging. Crisis & Risk Management: Served as the executive lead for global platform integrity, navigating complex regulatory requirements and content moderation at massive scale. ### Senior Director Product Management (Entrepreneur in Residence at CNN) @ WarnerMedia Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area Figuring where should CNN go beyond news to build 3 additional new business and revenue streams (areas of exploration - health/wellness, travel/activities & edtech). We have an outsized advantage of content creation and supply, global scale, subject matter experts and even bigger motivation to create new products/businesses. Wanna know more? ping me. ### Head of Product, Rider @ Lyft Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco, California, United States Started off with managing the rider experience product team and later promoted into the role of Head of Rider Product, leading a 200+ cross-functional organization and managing a team of 7 PMs across the end-to-end rider experience—from request flow to tipping, payments, and post-ride engagement. - P&L Owner of Lyft Pink, Lux Rides and Airports - Oversaw the successful launch of Lyft Pink, shaping subscription positioning, conversion, and retention mechanics (increase post marketing margin by 1 pp, incremental bookings by 5%) - Led product development, growth experimentation, and operational alignment across a large rider organization (200+ staff; 7 direct PM reports). Exited Lyft to pursue 0 → 1 product-building opportunities, aligning with long-term focus on creator platforms and new business incubation. ### Manager Product Management, Request Flow and App Experience @ Lyft Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco, California Delivered +10% incremental bookings in 6 months through app redesigns, routing and airport flow optimizations, and improvements across the rider journey. ### Director Product Management (Growth, Customer Experience & Platforms) @ Headspace Inc. Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco, California Scaling Headspace from 1 to ∞ - Voice (Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana) - Sleep - Wearables (Apple Watch) - Internal tools and customer experience - Personalization/Search/Recommendations - Partnerships and Platforms - Technology Infrastructure The story so far in Headspace: - Founder of four teams in Headspace - Connected Experiences/Emerging Products (Voice and Wearables), Conversion, Partnerships and Infrastructure and Tools. - Launched 13 skills on Alexa and a few Google Assistant Actions (including Sleep and Sleepcasts on these platforms) - Introduced IaaS vs. a service desk model for DevOps and Infrastructure team (which includes tools and process for Operational Excellence, DB Operations, Deployments and Provisioning) - Published a white-paper on Headspace Security and Compliance - Launched Customer Service tools/processes that helped us engage with our members and reduce costs in operations - Launched various experiments on personalization "Just For You" category on Library and recommendations on Voice - Launched various promos and experiments on checkout flows leading to increasing # of subscribers and conversion rate. ### Lead Product Manager @ Headspace Inc. Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco, California - Conversion & Growth ### Lead Instructor @ Product School Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | New York, New York Part time Instructor on Tue and Thur evenings in NYC. ### Senior Product Manager, User Engagement @ Spotify Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | New York, New York Where Notifications, Personalization and Growth meets. Product area lead: worked on notifications (email, in-app, push notifications) and growth tools using applied ML and complex backend infrastructure (XX billion song events/day). Some examples of user facing launches from my teams: - life cycle notifications and reminders such as registration, on-boarding, purchase completion, discover weekly, new releases etc. - concert notifications - release radar playlist - promos, intro offers - year in review ...... to name a few ... ### Senior Product Manager, Virtual Reality @ Dolby Laboratories Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco, California A complete immersion in a virtual world (behind those Head Mounted Displays) requires 'tricking'​ one's brain into believing what it is sensing. Sight can be as limiting as the field of view. Sound adds to what sight can't grasp - a bull charging from behind, a rattlesnake below on the right or even a whisper moving from the left ear behind the head to the right ear. With Dolby Atmos for Virtual Reality technology and tools, we aim to help content creators create object-based sound on a 3 dimensional space and encode their creation such that they are decoded and rendered binaurally (headphones) with precision and efficiency when an end user listens to the content. The artistic intent and creative integrity is maintained and preserved from the content creation to consumption thereby ensuring a full immersion into the virtual world. Responsible for Dolby Atmos Cinematic VR content creation workflow and tools, content packaging and distribution (codec) and rendering solutions. 1. Launched Dolby Atmos VR Production Suite and Dolby Atmos for Virtual Reality Applications - end to end ecosystem from content creation, codec and rendering sound over headphones and even speakers which are used by the leading VR sound mixers in the world such as Skywalker Sound. It's a widely adopted sound format - Jaunt - http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dolby-laboratories-jaunt-launch-world-130000365.html Littlstar - http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dolby-laboratories-littlstar-announce-next-130000572.html 2. Worked on two VR movies that were a part of official Sundance 2016 and Tribeca 2016 lineup - Collisions and Perspectives 2 ### Senior Product Manager, Search and Smart TV @ Yahoo Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | Sunnyvale, California Product: Trending Now and Trending Queries - Launched 100% algorithmic Trending Now (trending searches) experience in Yahoo driving higher click-through to Yahoo Search - Launched Trending Summary - Using trending signals from search queries and corpus of content Yahoo has, Trending Summary present a short snippet of information for the trending query so that users remain abreast of not just what's trending but also why they are trending. - Launched Top Holiday Searches in US - Responsible for the Trending Now Search Results Page experience - Responsible for Query Understanding - Responsible for the distribution of Trending Now - on/off network globally - Responsible for search traffic and revenue Product : Search Applications - Launched various applications that gives direct, engaging and interactive results to users for a given query Product: Smart TV - Manage the entire software stack - OS, Backend and Frontend for a couple of TV OEM companies - Developed specialized apps (Smart Guide - Personalized Program Guide - see link attached) and interactive ad experiences on top. - Managed the entire program of Smart TV portfolio of products. - CES 2014 Coverage: - http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-smart-tv-save-or-kill-television-2014-1 - http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/01/07/yahoo-brings-connected-tv-platform-smart-tvs-content-recommendations-related-updates/#!rGeW5 ### Product Manager, Notifications and Platforms @ Yahoo Jan 2011 – Jan 2013 | Bengaluru Area, India Notifications and Gamification Created a large scale real time platform for notifications and growth and at the same time developed ML models to understand user's better in context such as activation, retention, content creation, loyalty etc. We also developed a gamification platform in-house to gamify experiences for user engagement (activation & retention). User Segmentation and Reputation Clustering users using ML techniques on various dimensions such as engagement, loyalty, monetary value etc. ### Senior Product Manager, AOL Health and Lifestyles @ AOL Jan 2010 – Jan 2011 | Bengaluru Area, India and New York, New York AOL Health and Thatsfit.com (AOL/HuffingtonPost Healthy Living), ShelterPop, Aol Parenting & KitchenDaily 1. Completed an exhaustive study to bring in parity and beyond-parity features to AOL Health. 2. Managed day to day product related operations with ad tech, sales and editorial team to bring in additional revenue. 3. Evaluated and analyzed partnerships for Health and co-ordinate with business development for diligence, pricing and deal terms 4. Managed other products such as ShelterPop.com, KitchenDaily, Parenting etc. Additional responsibilities - 1) Completed product strategy for mobile and communication, location based services, paid services etc. 2) Done various due-diligence and research for new products 3) Due diligence of companies and research for AOL Ventures ### Product Manager, Winamp Media Player @ AOL Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 | Bengaluru Area, India Product Manager, Winamp and Music Usage Database (AOL Music) - Global audience 1. Managed Winamp Product(s) across all geographies 2. Managed AOL Music's Platform Services - large scale usage data of all users across the world - used for tracking, charting and personalization of individual's music - Music Database which contains all artists' content that powers all AOL Music Network properties 3. Worked with the community manager to engage one of the largest communities in this category 4. Wrote on the Winamp blog (http://blog.winamp.com) ### Marketing Manager @ CNBC-TV18 Jan 2007 – Jan 2008 | Mumbai Area, India Headed product and marketing for CompareIndia.com, Tech2.com and StoreGuru.com. 1) Launched StoreGuru.com which is shop.in.com now. 2) Prepared business plans/roadmaps/marketing plans/creative briefs/promotion plans for CompareIndia.com, Tech2.com and StoreGuru.com. 3) Managed 2 customers acquisition and support executives for CompareIndia.com. 4) Co-ordinated roadshows, events and contests for Tech2.com 5) Worked with varied teams - CNBC TV18, In.com, Moneycontrol, Mobile team (52622), Bookmyshow.com& JobStreet. 6) Worked closely with ad networks, online media planners and creative agencies. 7) Worked on a project involving structured data. ### Product Manager @ HT Media Ltd Jan 2006 – Jan 2007 | Mumbai Area, India Joined as a management trainee for the HT Media Ltd. group and worked on various assignments including the launch of Fever 104 FM (in association with Virgin Radio) and Mint (in association with the Wall Street Journal). Responsibilities as a product manager for Hindustan Times includes marketing strategy, creating product road map and business plans as well as co-ordinating efforts for sales, advertisement sales, operations, events, activation, marketing & communications which includes media planning and business development. Published three articles in Hindustan Times newspaper (Bombay Edition), 2007 ## Education ### Master of Technology in Microelectronics & VLSI Design Indian Institute of Technology, Madras ### Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Madras ### MBA in Marketing, Strategy and Systems Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ashokbania --- Source: https://flows.cv/ashokbania JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/ashokbania/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-05