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Vinod Raman is the Chief Product Officer at Endowus, a leading digital wealth platform in Asia. Raman brings priceless institutional finance and product management knowledge and experience to Endowus.

In his current role, Vinod is in charge of product management, data and design functions and is responsible for driving product strategy, roadmap and execution at Endowus.

Before Endowus, Raman spent more than two, years at Stash heading the Invest and Crypto product and business areas. He previously worked for eight years at Fidelity Investments, where he held various roles in the internal strategy and product management functions.

In this candid interview, Raman talks about his personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a 5-year-old?

Product management is like taking all of your Lego bricks, building something, and then sharing it with your friend to see if they can figure out how to use what you’ve built. That is probably the best way to explain it!

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

The opportunity to work at different types of organisations has been a great learning experience – large established firms like Fidelity and IBM and young and upcoming startups like Stash and Endowus. Unique challenges, very different geographies and great learning experiences.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

I don’t like to plan my career. Learning new things, taking risks, and growing personally and professionally are all important ingredients in my work life.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Looker/Mode/any other analytics tool, Figma and Google Docs in the same order.

Also Read: What Pierluigi Cau loves most about working at GitHub

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I am an introvert, but my job requires me to be more extroverted! That’s an ongoing process!

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

Definitely hybrid. In today’s world, flexibility is key. However, working from the office is critical to get together every so often to brainstorm/problem solve or to bond/build relationships.

What would you tell your younger self?

Failure is okay if it makes you wiser in your next attempt.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Optimist. Relentless. Explorer.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

Travelling and exploring new cultures.

What are you currently reading/listening to/watching?

Reading – Listening to a whole bunch of podcasts. I am mostly reading books to my kids!

Watching – Started watching ‘Breaking Bad’ one more time!

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