Nikhil Sharma
Head of Product Design, Airtel Payments Bank
Most of the work is upstream of the screens.
I take unclear, half-formed problems and turn them into products people trust, and build teams that keep shipping them.
Four numbers stay on the homepage because each points to a deeper proof route. The rest belongs in the archive, not the first read.
Head of Product Design at Airtel Payments Bank. I run product design and build the operating systems the team works in, and take messy problems all the way to shipped, across fintech and consumer products.
On the side, I build small products of my own and write an operating manual for AI-native product teams.
If you only inspect one layer after this page, inspect the case evidence: how trust, onboarding, fraud response, and scale moved from product ambiguity to shipped systems.
Turned account opening into a 24/7 digital scale engine with CKYC-based verification.
10x+ daily digital onboardings
Moved fraud reporting from helpline dependency to an in-app emergency-control workflow.
62% fraud-related reduction
Consumer payments and banking experience at regulated national scale.
12M+ monthly active users
Design creates systems that create products.
Most portfolios show the visible layer: screens, flows, launches, and metrics. But products are shaped much earlier: by how teams frame problems, how research changes decisions, how product and engineering collaborate, how quality is reviewed, and how leaders create the conditions for repeatable execution.
Architecture and healthcare trained the same muscle: make complex environments understandable, usable, and safe.
Payments and banking added trust, compliance, and everyday behavior at national product scale.
At Airtel Payments Bank, the work became institutional: hiring, rituals, reviews, research, and AI-assisted delivery systems.
LANE and Svenklas keep the loop honest: product judgment tested through things I own, ship, price, and operate.
LANE and Svenklas are not side projects in the decorative sense. They are proof that I can carry product judgment into ownership: thesis, product, brand, operations, and commercial tradeoffs.
A compact lab register for products where the proof is ownership: building, pricing, operating, and carrying the consequences.
AI product operating system
Builder proof: product thesis → working system
An AI-native operating system for product and design teams. It tests the same belief this site argues for: better products start with sharper problems, cleaner decisions, and a system teams can actually use.
Design-led consumer brand
Builder proof: brand → manufacturing → distribution
A travel accessories business where the design problem does not end at interface polish. I own product, brand, manufacturing, distribution, and the commercial tradeoffs.
Open-source intelligence archive
Builder proof: data system → public record → geopolitical context
A public-source website for tracking reported covert-conflict incidents with source trails, locations, timelines, and case context. The product challenge is turning fragmented national-security reporting into a structured, readable record.
Notification utility
Builder proof: mobile utility → privacy-first local archive
An opt-in utility app that preserves a user's own notification history on-device, so messages later deleted in apps like WhatsApp or Telegram can still be reviewed from the local archive.
Open to product and design leadership roles, advisory, speaking, or a serious conversation about building product organizations that can ship through ambiguity.