Project Manager · Senior · 10+ yrs

Lalitha Krishnan

Director of Program Management / PMO Lead

Chennai, India lalitha.krishnan@proton.me +91 90030 67218 linkedin.com/in/lalitha-krishnan-pmo

Professional summary

Program and portfolio leader with 12 years delivering enterprise technology and transformation programs across banking, telecom and SaaS. Runs multi-team portfolios up to ₹120 crore, builds and leads PMOs of 20+ project managers, and ties roadmaps and risk management to board-level outcomes — revenue, margin and time-to-market. Established Agile-at-scale operating models, owns executive and steering-committee reporting, and advises leadership on delivery strategy.

₹120Cr

Portfolio under governance

89%

On-time program delivery

PMO professionals led

Skills

Leadership

Program & portfolio managementPMO build-outHiring & mentoring (20+ PMs)Operating-model designExecutive alignment

Governance

Budget & P&L (₹120Cr)Enterprise risk managementVendor & contract managementBenefits realizationAudit & compliance

Delivery

Agile at scale (SAFe)Roadmap & release strategyDependency orchestrationChange managementOKRs

Reporting & tools

Board/steering reportingPortfolio KPIsJIRA AlignMS ProjectSmartsheetPower BI

Work experience

Director, Program Management Office (PMO) · Meridian Bank

Mar 2019 – Present

Chennai

Lead a 22-person PMO governing a ₹120 crore portfolio of 30+ concurrent programs across digital banking, payments and core modernization.
Built the enterprise delivery operating model (SAFe + stage-gate governance), lifting on-time program delivery from 64% to 89% and portfolio predictability to 91%.
Own executive and board-level reporting through a quarterly steering committee, giving leadership a single portfolio view of scope, budget, risk and benefits.
Drove an enterprise risk-management framework that cut high-severity delivery risks 38% year over year and prevented two regulatory slippages.
Recovered a stalled ₹45 crore core-banking program — re-baselined scope and vendor contracts — bringing it back to plan and capturing ₹6.8 crore in avoided overrun.
Hired 14 project and program managers and grew 5 into senior/lead roles; established the PMO career framework adopted org-wide.

Senior Program Manager · Aircel Wave Telecom

Jul 2014 – Feb 2019

Bengaluru

Managed a ₹60 crore network-modernization program across 5 vendors and 40+ engineers, delivering nationwide rollout 2 months ahead of schedule.
Instituted Agile/Scrum and JIRA-based reporting across 6 delivery teams, improving stakeholder satisfaction scores from 3.4 to 4.5 of 5.
Negotiated vendor SLAs and change orders that protected the budget within 3% across a 4-year program.

Project Manager — earlier roles · Cognizant, Wipro

2010 – 2014

India

Delivered banking and ERP implementation projects for global clients; promoted twice for delivery quality and stakeholder management.

Education

MBA — Operations & Project Management

2010

Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode, Kozhikode

B.E. Electronics & Communication

2007

College of Engineering, Guindy (Anna University), Chennai

Certifications

Program Management Professional (PgMP)

Project Management Institute (PMI) · 2020

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Project Management Institute (PMI) · 2014

SAFe Program Consultant (SPC)

Scaled Agile, Inc. · 2021

Selected achievements

Recovered a stalled ₹45 crore core-banking program, capturing ₹6.8 crore in avoided overrun by re-baselining scope and vendor contracts.

Raised on-time program delivery across the portfolio from 64% to 89% by building a SAFe + stage-gate operating model.

Speaker, PMI India National Conference 2023 — "Portfolio governance that the board actually reads."

Mentors women-in-leadership delivery cohorts and advises 2 fintech startups on PMO setup and delivery strategy.

See the work in 3D

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