Praveen Kothapally

Technology Delivery Leader · Program Manager · Release Governance · Audit & Compliance · Agile Transformation

praveenkay@gmail.com · linkedin.com/in/praveenkay · Lakeville, MN

Professional Summary

Technology Delivery Leader with 22+ years of experience driving enterprise technology programs, release governance, audit readiness, Agile transformation, and quality engineering across banking, financial services, and insurance. Proven track record leading multi-million-dollar technology portfolios, coordinating ISO 27001, ICIF, and PCI audit programs, and delivering measurable improvements in release predictability, team productivity, and operational governance. Brings executive-level stakeholder communication, cross-functional alignment, and AI-enabled delivery improvement mindset.

Certifications: PMP® · SAFe® 6 Agilist · AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner · Certified Scrum Master

Work Experience

Travelex Insurance Services — Zurich / Cover-More Group

Program Manager / Scrum Master — Release, Governance & Compliance

Dec 2023 – Present · Remote, MN

› Own end-to-end release governance across three delivery teams: sprint readiness, release planning, production deployment coordination, validation, and closure.
› Lead production deployment calls managing order of operations, real-time issue resolution, rollback decisions, and day-plus-one validation across Dev, QA, BA, and Infrastructure.
› Author deployment runbooks, release calendars, production validation documents, and executive-level release communications.
› Coordinate ISO 27001, ICIF, and PCI audit programs; maintain centralized evidence repositories and control traceability in Confluence and SharePoint.
› Drive Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) governance, sanction screening oversight, and Zurich/RACE control framework alignment.
› Applied AI to delivery operations — built UnderwriterAI (multi-agent underwriting platform) and AgentVerse (governance automation); used generative AI for control documentation and audit prep.
› Coach three Agile delivery teams in Scrum, self-management, and predictable execution cadence.

Bank of the West — BNP Paribas

Vice President, Technology Manager & Scrum Master — Global Retail Banking

Oct 2018 – Dec 2023 · Omaha, NE

› Led enterprise technology delivery and quality governance for multi-million-dollar retail banking programs as VP-level delivery SME.
› Managed vendor relationships, software risk management, and delivery governance across high-visibility banking technology portfolios.
› Drove enterprise Agile transformation achieving 20% productivity improvement and 40% time savings — contributing $150K+ in cost savings.
› Established automation engineering and DevOps practices, reducing manual testing effort by 70% and improving release quality.
› Delivered zero-defect releases for core banking platforms coordinated across Jira, Confluence, XRAY, and CI/CD pipelines.
› Built and mentored cross-functional delivery teams across business analysis, QA, infrastructure, and vendor stakeholders.

Bank of the West — BNP Paribas

Associate Vice President — Senior Lead Quality Assurance

Dec 2017 – Oct 2018 · Omaha, NE

› Led a 15-member geographically distributed QA team supporting critical core banking transformation programs.
› Developed CI/CD-based automation frameworks for cross-browser, API, and mainframe legacy applications.
› Delivered zero-defect releases contributing to $200K in project savings.
› Drove adoption of BDD and TDD practices across delivery teams, improving release confidence and upstream defect prevention.

Bank of the West — BNP Paribas

Senior QA Consultant — Global Banking CRM, Solutions Delivery

Dec 2015 – Dec 2017 · San Ramon, CA

› Led Scrum ceremonies and QA delivery on core banking and Salesforce CRM transformation programs.
› Designed and delivered automation initiatives contributing to zero-defect releases with $250K in project savings.
› Strengthened quality engineering across UI, API, and database layers using PL/SQL, HP UFT, Jira, Confluence, and XRAY.

First Tech Federal Credit Union

Scrum Master & Senior QA Consultant — Core Banking & Salesforce CRM

Sep 2014 – Dec 2015 · Portland, OR

› Led Scrum ceremonies and QA delivery across two large credit union and banking implementation programs.
› Implemented Kanban to improve enterprise team throughput and delivery cadence.
› Improved production issue resolution by collaborating with engineering and transition teams.

American Express

Scrum Master & Test Manager — Global Banking Technology

Feb 2014 – Sep 2014 · Salt Lake City, UT

› Led Scrum ceremonies and test management for a data services and reporting program in the global banking technology portfolio.
› Established Agile delivery workflows, ETL validation processes, and CI/CD-integrated testing practices.

Apple

Process Implementation Manager / Scrum Master / QA Lead — Sales CRM

Dec 2010 – Feb 2014 · Cupertino, CA

› Managed QA delivery and Scrum leadership for Apple's Sales Systems CRM portfolio across onsite and offshore teams.
› Established QA gating, Agile delivery standards, and automation frameworks — reducing test cycle time by 20%.
› Led multi-team coordination for large CRM releases with cross-boundary delivery partners.

Infosys, Accenture, Alamy, Informa Technologies

Technical Test Lead / Senior Software Test Engineer

May 2002 – Dec 2010 · India

› Led test automation and QA delivery for enterprise clients across insurance, banking, and media domains.
› Managed onsite-offshore delivery models and coordinated multi-team releases across distributed organizations.

Innovation & AI Initiatives

AuditReady OS

Compliance · ISO 27001 · GRC Platform

A live product concept directly informed by hands-on audit coordination experience at Travelex Insurance. Demonstrates what a practitioner-led GRC tool looks like.

UnderwriterAI

AI · Insurance · Multi-Agent Platform

Bridges domain expertise in insurance delivery with applied AI product thinking. Demonstrates initiative beyond day-to-day execution.

AgentVerse

AI · Governance Automation · Multi-Agent

Practical AI applied to the exact workflows I manage daily. Reduces administrative overhead and improves governance output quality at scale.

TestMaster & JiraFieldMaster

QA · Jira Governance · Delivery Tooling

Tooling that directly supports release governance and QA maturity — the same problems these tools solve are ones I address for organizations every day.

Core Competencies

Delivery Leadership

Program Management · Portfolio Coordination · Stakeholder Management · Vendor Management

Release Governance

Change Management · CAB Coordination · Deployment Planning · Production Readiness · Release Calendars · Runbooks

Compliance & Risk

ISO 27001 · ICIF · PCI · Third-Party Risk · Control Evidence · Risk Management

Agile Leadership

Scrum · Kanban · SAFe · Team Coaching · Agile Transformation

Technology

Jira · Confluence · AWS · Python · TypeScript · AI Solutions · Automation · SharePoint

Education

Bangalore University — B.E., Electrical & Electronics Engineering (1998–2001)

Certifications

› PMP® — Project Management Institute(Project Management Professional credential verified through Credly.)
› SAFe® 6 Agilist — Scaled Agile(SAFe 6 Agilist credential verified through Credly.)
› AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner — Amazon Web Services(Issued June 2, 2023 · Expires May 28, 2029.)
› Scrum Master Accredited Certification — International Scrum Institute(Certificate ID 27392127347644 · Issued November 10, 2015.)