Rohin Sharma

Personally tasked with “keeping the lights on” and improving product operations. Therefore, performed a SWOT analysis on the product portfolio and conducted market research on target markets. Then, presented the final report as a formal business plan to executive leadership. The plan’s proposed strategies were backed by metrics and outlined the vision and goal for the product portfolio.

Leadership approved the business plan’s execution, which increased EBITDA by $5 million in only two years.

First, reviewed the master contracts for all vendors and identified the terms that were reducing Anthem’s profits. Gathered real-life data from past years and used industry standard practices to create a compelling case for contract renegotiation. Next, held effective negotiation sessions with the vendors’ executives, management, and procurement teams. Then, performed revenue retention and optimization to maximize profits and minimize expenses. Last, initiated an RFP to evaluate other vendors and refined the contracts to offer competitive advantages.

Successfully renegotiated the vendor contracts to gain $2.5 million in operating profit growth. Furthermore, eliminated many expenses previously charged to Anthem by vendors to save an additional $500,000 per year.

Created and executed strategies to accomplish organic and inorganic growth. First, partnered with a top spending accounts vendor/provider in the market to combine forces and capture the lost market share. Then, implemented a market penetration sales growth strategy to incentivize the sales teams to sell spending accounts products through sales contests.

This effective growth strategy successfully expanded operations, increased revenue, and enhanced market reach for the product portfolio. The combined organic and inorganic growth totaled more than one million new members.

Performed a user analytics deep dive to identify the root cause of the low conversion rate. As a solution, proposed a product plan to create two new products from the existing product lines. These would be express product versions only meant for targeted user segments, such as retirees. This reduced the registration and account opening customer journey to merely three to four steps.

As a result, 70% of users converted to customers who registered and opened an account. Furthermore, the express product offering increased the account funding rate and customer satisfaction scores.

First, presented a transition plan to senior leaders to gain their buy-in for new productivity tools. Next, led the teams in implementing JIRA and Confluence for companywide usage. Finally, created processes for using the new tools to streamline product development and reporting.

As a result, organizational effectiveness and productivity rose by 60%. Additionally, the new tools enabled leadership to generate reports featuring real-time data to create or pivot their strategic decisions.

Modernized the team’s operating model to transform their roles to 360 product development experts. Then, created a Center of Excellence (CoE) to drive standardization across the teams and products, as well as measure performance with agreed upon metrics. Next, implemented governance across the portfolio that was managed by team members who became Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Last, empowered the team members to be leaders of their respective products.

As a result, team members felt motivated to make the product portfolio profitable again. Furthermore, the annual employee satisfaction survey scored 85%, which was 10% higher than the previous year under the direction of a different leader.