About · SVKi
Design-led transformations, one honest decision at a time.
From bold ambitions to enduring capabilities. From products and services to AI-enabled ways of working, I help C-suite leaders reduce uncertainty, align strategy, people and technology, and build the capabilities their organisations need next.
Over two decades helping organisations build design functions, customer experiences, digital products and AI-enabled capabilities across banking, healthcare, retail and government.
The story
How I got here.
I started as a designer who kept ending up in engineering rooms, and an engineer who kept ending up in boardrooms. Twenty years in, that turned out to be the job — sitting where strategy, design and technology meet, and helping teams stop treating them as separate departments.
Along the way I've built and led design functions inside banks, helped mega-destinations shape their first digital products, coached founders through 0→1, and now spend most of my time helping leadership teams figure out what AI actually means for the way they operate — not the way they market.
What I care about hasn't changed: the muscle a team keeps long after I'm gone.
What I believe
Five convictions the work rests on.
- 01
Design leads. AI amplifies. The order is not negotiable.
- 02
Capability outlives deliverables. Build the muscle, not the report.
- 03
Strategy without a working artefact is theatre.
- 04
The Global South doesn't need permission to lead — it needs conviction.
- 05
Independent by choice. Collective by practice.
How I work
Diagnose. Align. Build. Embed.
One rehearsed loop, boardroom to product. Every engagement moves through it, at whatever pace the decision needs.
01 · SENSE
Map the unspoken.
We start where strategy decks usually end — surfacing the assumptions, customer realities, regulatory edges and operating constraints that decide whether a bet survives contact with the market.
EXAMPLE DELIVERABLES
- —Reality Map of the org & market
- —Stakeholder & power map
- —Assumption ledger (top 20 risks)
- —Readiness diagnostic & scorecard
Where I've worked
Deep in four industries. Across three regions.
Industries
- Banking
- Healthcare
- Retail
- Government
- Leisure
- Ventures
Regions
- India
- The Gulf
- Southeast Asia
- East Africa
What people say
In their words.
"Saravanan walked into a room of executives arguing about AI and left them agreeing on the first move. That's rare."
Group CXO · UAE Retail Bank
"The way of working transferred. Six months in, the team was running rituals on their own — no consultants required."
Chief Product Officer · KSA Mega-project
"He tells you what to stop doing before he tells you what to start. That saved us a year."
Founder · India-headquartered SaaS
The ventures