Bhavik Makwana — Staff Product Manager

About

Building products that scale

I'm a seasoned Product Manager with over a decade of experience in E-commerce, Marketplaces and Travel — driving product strategy, execution and scalable business growth.

Specialised in launching and refining AI/ML-driven features, leading cross-functional teams, and delivering 0-to-1 products at global companies like Rakuten Viber, Delivery Hero and Amazon Pay.

Currently at Rakuten Viber as Staff PM, I lead product strategy for Viber Pay in APAC & EU — covering tech partnerships, in-chat payments, and digital wallet growth across 190+ countries.

I'm also actively building side projects with AI tools — my latest is SalaryGuru.co.uk, a UK salary sacrifice calculator built with Claude Opus 4.6 and shipped in days.

✉ Email me LinkedIn +44 7931 262197

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UK Global Talent Visa

Exceptional Talent — No sponsorship required

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AI-First Builder

Claude, Replit, Lovable, Rork, Grok, Gemini, ChatGPT

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Proven Impact

€0.6M/qtr revenue · $5M saved · 1.6M users

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AI/ML Expertise

7 ML models · NLP automation · Personalisation at scale

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0→1 Track Record

Multiple products launched from scratch globally

Career

Professional Experience

Rakuten Viber

Feb 2024 – Present

Staff Product Manager — Merchants & Engagement

World's leading messaging & VoIP platform · 1B+ registered users · 190+ countries

Leading product strategy for Viber Pay in APAC — managing tech partnerships & driving synergies across Pay, Business messages & Marketplace
Launched gamified waitlist for Viber Pay in Philippines: ~12% conversion & 1.6M users
Integrated personalised Braze banners on home screen: ~8% conversion uplift across 8 EU countries
Launched EU's first In-chat payments — ~43% share of transactions, ~16% share of new wallets
Defined personalised QR experience for payments in Philippines — integrating offline merchants' ecosystem for 1M merchants & marketplace sellers

FintechPaymentsAPACEU0→1Growth

Delivery Hero

Jul 2022 – Feb 2024

Lead Product Manager — Search & Discovery

Global food-tech marketplace · 14 countries · 6 brands · ~180M MAU

Launched Ads on Search bar 0→1: +6% conversion, +€0.6M/quarter additional ad revenue — A/B tested across 12 countries
Launched Chain navigation: +1.37% conversion for out-of-stock items
Defined & launched Menu search: +7% conversion — creating continuous journey from SRP
Launched ready-to-render display ads with carousel: +3.8% ad revenue for restaurant partners
Personalised recommendation bar & dynamic filters: 2% CTR & 0.43% conversion uplift globally
Mentored two PMs from non-PM backgrounds into permanent technical PM roles

SearchDiscoveryMonetisationPersonalisationA/B Testing

Blibli

Nov 2020 – Jun 2022

Lead Product Manager — Marketplace

Indonesia's leading P2P & e-commerce marketplace · 600k+ sellers

Led marketplace seller center for Web & Mobile — largest tech team in org: 4 senior devs, 12 jr. devs, 3 QAs, 2 UX, 2 data scientists
Integrated 7 ML models to automate catalog moderation: wait-time 2 weeks → 1 day, ~10,000 man-hours/month saved
Launched AI-based Catalog pre-fill: +15% successful product creation
ML-based fake product identification: -3% returns for 500 brands
AI-assisted category & brand detection: -25% rejections

AI/MLMarketplaceAutomationIndonesia

Amazon Pay

Aug 2018 – Nov 2020

Platform Product Manager — Travel

Amazon India's digital payment service · World-first Travel booking launch

Launched Bus bookings end-to-end 0→1 in 9 months (world-first for Amazon): led user research, MVP, partner integration & launch
Launched retargeting & reminders (push & in-app): +$5M revenue
Integrated ML model for real-time abuse/fraud prevention: saved $5M USD
Achieved ~99.8% UPI payment success rate — reduced payment & booking failures
Prime users on ICICI co-branded cards for travel: ~20% booking share

TravelPaymentsFraud PreventionIndia0→1

Tapzo

Jan 2018 – Aug 2018

Product Manager

India's first all-in-one super-app (Sequoia-backed) · 35+ daily services

Launched Bus bookings & food order flows via API partner integrations: 20x growth in 4 months
SDK integrations with leading Indian banks: 300% growth in Q1 2018

Super-appGrowthFintech

Genpact

May 2016 – Dec 2017

Digital Product Consultant

Global digital consulting firm · Capital markets & financing · ~60 countries

Led launch of digital customer services & onboarding app for Latitude Financial Services: 4.5 stars, ~115,000 reviews
Implemented contact center automation via NLP & ML: $50M impact

ConsultingNLPFintech

Projects

What I'm building

Side projects built with AI — from idea to live product, fast.

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SalaryGuru — UK Salary Sacrifice Calculator

Free UK salary sacrifice calculator for 2025/26. See exact tax & NI savings on pension, cycle to work, and car lease. Includes a month-by-month in-hand salary estimator for the remaining tax year.

Claude Opus 4.6 React UK Tax GitHub Pages

Visit salaryguru.co.uk →

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More coming soon

Currently prototyping new tools using AI. Follow me on LinkedIn to get notified when the next one ships.

Claude Replit Lovable Rork

In progress...

Expertise

Skills & Tools

Product

Product Strategy 0→1 Launches Growth Roadmapping A/B Testing Experimentation User Research Monetisation

Domains

Fintech / Payments Marketplaces Search & Discovery Personalisation Ranking Travel E-commerce Messaging

AI Stack

Claude (Anthropic) ChatGPT Grok Gemini Replit Lovable Rork

Tools

Figma Jira Mixpanel Tableau Braze Confluence GitHub SQL

Education

Academic Background

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MBA — Operations Management

Symbiosis Institute of Business Management

June 2014 – March 2016 · Pune, India

Relevant coursework: Tech & Innovation Strategy · Negotiations & Bargaining · Product Strategy

Leadership: Founder & Vice President, OpCellence — SIBM Pune

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B.E. — Computer Science Engineering

Charotar University of Science & Technology

August 2009 – March 2013 · Gujarat, India

Relevant coursework: Machine Learning · Artificial Intelligence · Operating Systems · Data Mining

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