# Hemanth Kumar N J > AI PM | MBA @ UC Berkeley Haas | Ex-Gupshup, Nova Benefits | IIT Madras Location: Berkeley, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/hemanthkumarnj Some of the most meaningful work I’ve done happened when things were ambiguous, messy, and slightly impossible. There’s something energizing about the zero-to-one phase—figuring out the user, the market, the messy workflows, and turning it into something that actually works. Over the past few years, I’ve been fortunate to help build AI-native and B2B SaaS products at early- and growth-stage startups. From launching new revenue lines to architecting internal tooling, I’ve seen how product isn’t just about features—it’s about earning trust, unlocking behavior, and connecting execution to strategy. Before product, I studied engineering and built a food-tech startup from campus. That early experience of turning raw chaos into something real taught me what makes a great product org: strong collaboration, relentless curiosity, and bias for action. Today, I’m pursuing my MBA at Berkeley Haas to further sharpen my thinking around product, design, and systems strategy—while staying deeply hands-on with AI projects and early-stage teams. I thrive in teams where speed, clarity, and craft come together. If you’re building something from scratch—or navigating that fragile phase between MVP and scale—I’d love to connect. ## Work Experience ### MBA Candidate @ University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business Jan 2025 – Present | Berkeley, CA 1. Developed a multi-agent architecture using the A2A protocol to automate and standardize statistical validation of A/B test efficacy for product experiments. (Under prof. Dawn Song) 2. President, PM Club: Organized the Berkeley PM Summit and led the club’s casebook launch. 3. Haas merit scholarship recipient. ### Product Manager @ Gupshup Jan 2023 – Jan 2025 | Bengaluru Owned 3 product lines as Product Manager, driving meaningful revenue growth and margin expansion: 1. Built and launched 0‑to‑1 AI products including a campaign experimentation tool, customer data platform, and integration service for high‑volume messaging. ​2. Shaped platform architecture and governance for security, observability, and compliance (RBAC, encryption, PII handling, and enterprise standards) in collaboration with engineering leadership. 3. Applied LLMs, multi‑agent systems, and RL to automate experimentation and message personalization in collaboration with data science and ML teams. ​4. Drove user‑centric product decisions through qualitative research, funnel and cohort analysis, and continuous UX iteration for developer and business workflows. ​5. Led end‑to‑end product lifecycle and GTM for multi‑region launches, partnering with sales, marketing, and support to drive adoption across enterprise customers. ### Product Manager @ Nova Benefits Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | Bengaluru Founding team member (first 10 employees), played a key role in raising a $10M Series A. 1. First product manager for an insurance claims product line, combining AI‑powered automation and NLP‑based document processing to improve unit economics and operational efficiency. ​2. Led design and rollout of APIs, internal tools, and operational dashboards to streamline multi‑stakeholder claims workflows using data analysis and end‑to‑end journey mapping. ​3. Drove product‑led growth by launching a gamified AI fitness bot and running rapid experimentation to materially improve activation and engagement across enterprise clients. ​4. Defined and launched a benefits marketplace with a self‑serve UX, translating competitive and market research into a differentiated product ecosystem for employers and employees. ### Associate Product Manager @ Nova Benefits Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | Bengaluru, Karnataka, India ### Product experiments generalist @ Nova Benefits Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 | Bengaluru, Karnataka, India ### Growth generalist - lead gen @ Nova Benefits Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 | Bengaluru, Karnataka, India ### Angel Investor @ GrowthX Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 ### Product Analyst @ A pre-seed edtech startup Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 - Currently in the product development stage (incubated under a unicorn founder) - Build user journey maps for customer features and critique wireframes and mockups built by the designers - Conduct extensive market research (and perform analysis- both qualitative and quantitative), to derive insights for business model development and product building ### Head Of Market Research @ Red5Fin Foundation Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 - A non-profit entity, identifying early-stage social entrepreneurial ventures and providing necessary resources, effectively serving as a virtual incubator - Identified the most opportune business ideas and analyzed various market segments, all the while ensuring the ideas adhere to 17 sustainable development goals and clear the ESG cut-off - Did extensive research on the Industrial wastewater segment, identified potential business opportunities, and submitted the research for the commercial entity. - Laid the foundation for the company's operational structure for effective functioning within the online environment (As of now the company is in stealth mode because the parent commercial entity is preparing for series-A funding, and all the resources are allocated there, would continue in my position, once the commercial entity is successfully established) ### Strategic research @ Apptino Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India -Apptino is a SaaS product experience management & B2B commerce platform for manufacturing & wholesale distribution - Conducted extensive market research covering sales heads of leading conglomerates(Godrej, Emami) - Identified target market segments to acquire potential customers, improvements in product and pitch - Identified key industry with significant potential (client impressed by specific insights!) ### Co-Founder_Homecoming foods @ Nirmaan IITM Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | Chennai Area, India -Homemade food delivery service at an MVP stage pre-incubated in Nirmaan (initial funding: INR 2L) -Piloted services for 3 startups(B2B model), MVP purpose: simulating for a real-time logistic model -Conducted Market research covering 400+ people, developed a beta version of app and pricing model (End result: After significant analysis and a pivot in the model, we weren't able to build a practical and profitable unit economic business model, presented failure analysis, and reflected on learning) - Biggest learning: Tunnel vision on solution space and obsessed on the logistics problem rather than solving for food-quality by analyzing the complete supply chain ### Design Engineer @ The ePlane Company Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Chennai Area, India -Startup fabricating customized drones for industries primarily for surveillance and agricultural purposes at the world's largest combustion center at IITM, Guide: Dr. Satya Chakravarthy -Developed structural design for the state of the art 12kg payload Agri-Copter that addresses large scale fertilization needs of an MNC -Built Hexacopter drones used for surveillance, resulting in significant employee safety regulation default risk ### Powertrain Manager @ Raftar Formula Racing Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Chennai ACHIEVEMENTS -‘Most Fuel Efficient Model’ at Formula Student Italy held at Riccardo Paletti Circuit - Member of the only team to represent India at the FSG competition held at Hockenheim ring('18) - 3rd overall in cost optimization in FSG('19) -FB'19 (1st in Design presentation, 2nd in Cost Optimization, 3rd in Business Plan Presentation) -FB'18 (3rd overall, 1st in Fuel efficiency, 2nd in Endurance event) ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES -Negotiating with various high profile automotive firms for partnerships primarily for funding and facilities -Managed Powertrain project end-to-end, including task and fund allotment -Working on various aspects of the car starting from ideation, design, manufacturing, and testing ## Education ### Master of Business Administration - MBA University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business Jan 2025 – Jan 2027 ### Bachelor's degree in Aerospace engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Jan 2016 – Jan 2020 ### Growth and product GrowthX® Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 ### High school Maharishi Vidya Mandir, Chetpet Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 ### Kendriya Vidyalaya Jan 2004 – Jan 2014 ### Product management Reforge Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/hemanth-nj --- Source: https://flows.cv/hemanthkumarnj JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/hemanthkumarnj/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-25