Start with the real problem
I align customer needs, business goals, constraints and evidence before a team commits to solutions. Clear problem framing is where good product strategy starts.
Asgar Gullukhan
FIG. 00 · PRODUCTS · TEAMS · SYSTEMS · SCALE 1:1
Product design leadership for products, teams & systems at scale.
I lead design at the intersection of customer experience, product strategy and business outcomes, building high-performing teams and creating products used by millions. Currently Head of Design at Reward360. Previously Senior Product Design Manager at PhonePe.
SEC · 01
Operating
Operating
principles
Build teams that make the next decision better
My job is not to own every answer. It is to create clarity, context and a quality bar so designers, PMs and engineers can make stronger decisions independently.
Connect craft to business impact
Research, interaction and visual craft matter most when they move customer and business outcomes. I make the rationale visible so teams can learn, iterate and scale it.
Use systems and AI for leverage
I stay close to the work while improving the system around it: design systems, governance, research practice and responsible AI workflows that increase team leverage.
SEC · 02
The index of
The index of
selected work
Drawing register · 6 sheets · tap any drawing to open
SHT 01 · A-01
Live
Plate 01 · UX + System
Shipped
Plate 02 · B2B · 4 Sub-Projects
Shipped
Plate 03 · Consumer UX
Shipped
Plate 04 · Fintech / Wealth
Launched
Plate 05 · Brand + 0→1
Flight Booking
HDFC SmartBuy · Web & Mobile
Redesigning flight redemption on HDFC SmartBuy: clearer pricing, faster fare comparison, and a booking journey that converts and retains.
Open drawing 2025–Now
SHT 02 · A-02
PhonePe Business
PhonePe · B2B · Four Sub-Projects
Merchant Home, settlement errors, lending top-of-funnel and SmartSpeaker ordering. 11.5M+ merchants, +15% DAU, ₹20Cr/mo incremental.
Open drawing 2019–2025
SHT 03 · A-03
Recharge & Bills
PhonePe · Consumer
Simplifying utility payments for hundreds of millions of users. High-frequency UX where small frictions become national-scale problems.
Open drawing 2019–2025
SHT 04 · A-04
Digital Gold
PhonePe · Wealth
Digital-gold investing for India’s next 100M investors: a centuries-old asset made native to a payments app, and safe enough to trust.
Open drawing 2019–2025
SHT 05 · A-05
Tripsure 0→1
Reward360 · ICICI iShop
An OTA brand built from scratch to challenge the market: identity, strategy, and product, from blank page to launchable proposition.
Open drawing 2024
SHT 06 · A-06
In Preparation
Plate 06 · System Design
One system, three banks
Reward360 · HDFC · ICICI · Kotak
In
Prep
Prep
One token architecture serving HDFC, ICICI & Kotak, with 40% faster handoffs across every partner. Case study in preparation.
Drawing pending2025
SEC · 03
Side projects:
Pet project 01
Toastrology
A toaster that tells you the truth.
Pick your bread, pick your burn level, push the lever. The coils glow, and a slice pops out with a prophecy burnt into it. Sourdough for work. Rye for situationships. Bagel for chaos. Pale is gentle. Cremated is not.
It came from one question: why do the most satisfying interactions online vanish the second you close the tab? Because they never hand you anything. This one does — you leave holding something.
Burn me a prophecyPet project 02
Chaiya Kada
A tea shop you can sit inside.
Growing up in Kerala, walking to the local chaya kada with my grandfather was just part of the day. While the tea master worked, an old Malayalam song played somewhere behind you. Someone read the newspaper. A few uncles argued politics and cricket. Beedi smoke in the air. And you just sat there, waiting for your tea.
Nothing extraordinary — but it stayed with me. So I rebuilt a small piece of it: sit back, let the songs play, change the track. An experiment in whether design, storytelling, AI and code can make something that feels less like a website and more like a memory.
Pour me a chai
SEC · 04
Twenty years,
Twenty years,
on the record
2025–Present
Current
Head of Design
Reward360 · Bengaluru
- Lead experience strategy across loyalty, rewards, travel and commerce platforms for HDFC, ICICI, Kotak, Standard Chartered & Axis Bank.
- Built the design function 0→1: a team of 7+ designers across 3 product squads, with hiring, weekly critiques, career frameworks and quality gates.
- Architected a unified design system with reusable tokens and handoff standards, cutting design-to-development effort by 40%.
- Led research with 20+ users to sharpen hierarchy, components and notifications, contributing to a 34% increase in flight bookings.
- Introduced AI-enabled workflows (Pencil.dev, Figma AI, rapid prototypes) with human review and brand guardrails.
- Created the 0→1 brand identity, positioning and product direction for Tripsure.
2019–2025
Sr. Product Design Manager
PhonePe · Bengaluru
- Led merchant design at India's largest fintech, serving 39M+ registered merchants and 11.5M+ monthly actives.
- Designed and launched SmartSpeaker 0→1: voice-based payment confirmation in 11 Indian languages, with 6M+ deployments.
- Led UX strategy for Merchant Lending, covering eligibility, application, disbursement and repayment for SMEs & MSMEs.
- Reworked Merchant Home, driving +15% DAU and ₹20Cr/mo incremental revenue.
- Guided prioritization with research, funnels, conversion, retention and NPS; managed and mentored product designers.
2018–2019
UI/UX Lead
Dunzo · Bengaluru
- Owned end-to-end consumer UX on iOS & Android: discovery, multi-store ordering, cart, checkout and real-time tracking.
- Redesigned friction-heavy journeys with usability testing and behavioural data, improving conversion and repeat orders.
- Unified groceries, food, pharmacy and local errands into one coherent discovery and shopping model.
Mar 2016–Jun 2019
Head of Design
Prototyze Venture Studio · MobieFit · Seynse
- Led design at MobieFit (2016–2017), a health-and-fitness startup incubated by Prototyze, building apps that use phone sensors and GPS to track zero-equipment bodyweight workouts, walking and 5K/10K running milestones.
- Moved within the studio to Seynse Technologies as Head of Design (2017–2019), leading design for its digital lending products.
Mar 2015–Feb 2016
Founding Design Lead
Mara Group
- Built the design team and culture from the company's inception, growing a 7-member team that carried every product initiative to go-to-market.
- Mara Mentor, a free online and mobile mentoring platform connecting startup founders and young entrepreneurs with global business leaders.
- Mara Jobs, an employment app for blue- and white-collar markets across emerging economies in Africa and the Indian subcontinent.
- Mara Messenger, a localized chat app with texting, location sharing and broadcasts, built to compete with global messaging platforms.
- Mara Connect & BuzzMe, early experiments in voice and real-time community engagement.
Nov 2014–Feb 2015
Product Designer
NuvoEx · PepperTap
- Designed PepperTap end-to-end as an individual contributor: illustration, branding, app and website.
- PepperTap, formed under NuvoEx, was India's mobile-first on-demand hyperlocal grocery service, later acquired by Grofers (now Blinkit).
2013–2014
UX Designer
Hike Messenger
- Designed messaging, media sharing and content discovery for India's #1 app on Android & iOS in 2013, a $1.4B unicorn.
- Led UX for the Hike Sticker Store, a scalable, commerce-like discovery experience driving retention and self-expression.
2009–2013
Lead Web Designer
Qburst Technologies
- Led responsive web and product design across telecom, enterprise and e-commerce, including BT & Plusnet (UK).
- Mentored junior designers and set visual quality standards, working directly with global clients and engineering teams.
2004–2008
Earlier Career
Alamy Images · Vanilla Networks · Kera Marwallah
- Started as a graphic designer, then as websites boomed learnt HTML, CSS & JavaScript and moved into web design.
- Built foundational craft in information architecture, visual hierarchy, image-rich interfaces, digital production and brand design.
SEC · 05
Real impact.
Real impact.
At real scale.
34%
Flight bookings
Research-led experience improvements
40%
Design-to-development effort
Systems, governance & AI workflows
39M+
Merchant ecosystem
Products led at PhonePe
6M+
SmartSpeaker deployments
Connected merchant experience
7+ / 3
Designers / product squads
Team and organizational leadership
Let's build what scales well.
I'm most useful where design has real influence over product direction, team quality and business outcomes: Head of Design, Director and senior design leadership roles where product, people and systems need to scale together.