Smitha Shivakumar
Senior Product Manager | FinTech | AI | Portfolio and Risk Analysis | Solving problems where there’s no playbook | Nonprofit Founder | Regenerative Gardening
Seattle, WA

What energizes me most is solving problems where there’s no playbook — designing governance frameworks, creating mechanisms for scale, and integrating fragmented systems into something cohesive and impactful. Much of my work sits at the crossroads of product execution, compliance automation, and technical integration.

I’m a product builder at the intersection of financial infrastructure, data governance, and emerging technology, with over a decade of experience delivering high-impact solutions in global trading environments. From launching AI-powered P&L dashboards at Bank of America to designing ERC-3643-compliant smart contracts for tokenized bonds, I bring deep expertise in transforming complex financial workflows into intuitive, scalable products.

Two career highlights:

First, at Bank of America, I led the end-to-end development of a real-time PnL and risk variance dashboard for commodities traders. There was no unified tool — just tribal knowledge and spreadsheets. I built alignment across risk, compliance, and engineering stakeholders to define a governance model, prototyped a scalable interface, and drove integration with downstream tools. What started as a manual workaround evolved into a high-trust, automated system supporting $100M+ in daily operations and reducing discrepancies by 40%.

Second, I drove a cross-org initiative to consolidate real-time collateral exposure tracking, which directly affected loan capacity. The challenge wasn’t just technical, it was strategic and political. I led a joint planning effort with four teams across risk, legal, and trading, codified shared OKRs, and ran structured communication mechanisms — daily standups and weekly demos — to maintain momentum. That program delivered an automated dashboard that became the system of record for $500M+ in exposure management and eliminated over 80% of manual interventions. Without it, loan volume would've likely dropped by half.

Currently, I’m focused on building infrastructure that supports the next evolution of credit data systems and programmable finance, while championing inclusion, transparency, and real-world impact. And when I’m not working I’ve been diving into regenerative gardening — turning kitchen waste into black gold. There’s something rewarding about building closed-loop systems that produce long-term value.

Let’s connect if you're exploring:
• Credit market products or data strategy
• Risk analytics, compliance tooling, or AI governance
• Stablecoin infrastructure and on-chain financial design
• NGO collaborations or mission-aligned product work

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