Lalitha Krishnan
Director of Program Management / PMO Lead
Chennai, India • +91 90030 67218 • lalitha.krishnan@proton.me • linkedin.com/in/lalitha-krishnan-pmo
Portfolio: www.eliorexa.com/portfolio/project-manager-senior
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.
Skills
Leadership: Program & portfolio management, PMO build-out, Hiring & mentoring (20+ PMs), Operating-model design, Executive alignment
Governance: Budget & P&L (₹120Cr), Enterprise risk management, Vendor & contract management, Benefits realization, Audit & compliance
Delivery: Agile at scale (SAFe), Roadmap & release strategy, Dependency orchestration, Change management, OKRs
Reporting & tools: Board/steering reporting, Portfolio KPIs, JIRA Align, MS Project, Smartsheet, Power BI
Core Competencies
program management · portfolio management · PMO · PMP · PgMP · Agile · SAFe · stakeholder management · budgeting · risk management · delivery · roadmaps · executive reporting · governance
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.