CxO of the Week: Amrita Malik, Chief Business Officer, Innoviti Payment Solutions

CxO of the Week: Amrita Malik, CBO, Innoviti Payment Solutions, was part of the apex management team that was responsible for building India’s first multi-sided platform of intelligent payment channels. She joined the company as their first salesperson early in 2009. From sales, she moved to product management and later to business operations within Innoviti.

As Innoviti’s CBO, she is responsible for streamlining internal operations, leading the SME lending initiative and overseeing the company’s strategic planning. Prior to her current role as CBO, Amrita has also been the Business Head for SME lending for over 4 years, AVP Product Management – uniPAY for 1 year and Senior Manager Sales – uniPAY for 5 years.

What is your top priority while making decisions to improve tech infra in your organisation?

First is to identify the large enough problem which can either bring efficiency in customer’s business or can help them increase their sales. Once the objective is clear, we prefer to design a simplistic solution for which we define use cases, processes, reports, etc. We improve technology infrastructure for all these requirements having one objective in mind – easy to interact product should come out.

What are the challenges you face in driving digital transformation?

The major challenge is user-level acceptance. Be it our own teams or retailers or partners. People take a lot of time in changing habits i.e. moving digital from the manual. To address such challenges, we identify champions inside our company as well as in customers, who can help us driving such initiatives. We communicate the benefits of the product and processes to our teams and customers. We do reviews of teams using the same tools. We present the facts using data from the same tools.

Do you feel that freshers in the industry come with only basic knowledge but don’t have the right skills to fulfil job requirements? If yes, your suggestion to students and colleges?

Yes, I agree. But this is strength also because this gap can be utilized by the companies in filling up the way they want to drive students. For students, I think it’s very important to come with curiosity and hard work mindset. Be curious to learn what’s happening, why is it happening, how is it happening and how are different people reacting to it. Here the mindset of learning behind the current product or process is extremely important instead of suggesting a change. Suggesting a change can come later after a few years of experience.

What’s your mantra to become successful in life?

I think it’s the curiosity in me. I am always curious to know the reason behind whatever is happening and how are users reacting to it and how can we make it better within current constraints.

What would you like to give back to the society?

I would like to create job opportunities for people in tier 2, tier 3 cities so that they don’t need to come to tier 1 city to earn the livelihood. This movement to tier 1 cities creates a burden on overall ecosystem due to individual’s cost increase which results into cost increase for companies which results to cost increase for customers.

Your favourite book and what are you reading now?

“The Guide” is my favourite book. I am reading “Fermat’s Last Theorem” right now.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Spending time in retail outlets for shopping or to observe consumers’ reactions to various retail initiatives.

Achievements (Awards & Recognitions)

I have won many awards in my organization but the award which is close to my heart is “Spirit Of Innoviti” award which is considered as role model award in our organization. Outside our organization, whichever award I receive for my company gives me pride.

Experience

More than 10 years

First Job – Innoviti Payments Solutions Pvt. Ltd

Education – Senior Executive Leadership Program, Harvard Business School