AI Program Manager

Turning AI into reliable
business outcomes.

Twelve years orchestrating complex, global programs — for Fortune 500 enterprises and AI-first companies operating at the edge of what's possible. PMI-trained discipline, applied where AI ambition meets enterprise accountability.

12+ yrsProgram leadership
45+Global team members led
F500Enterprise stakeholders
PMP · ACP · AWSCertified
Umair Baig
Operating systems built for
AI Operations Human-in-the-Loop Enterprise SLAs Global Delivery SAFe · Agile · Waterfall
About

A strategic operator
for AI at scale.

I sit at the intersection of frontier AI and enterprise rigor — translating model capability into measurable, repeatable business outcomes for the executives who depend on them.

The hardest problem in applied AI isn't the model. It's the operating system around it — the workflows, the quality bar, the SLAs, the people, and the executive narrative that holds it all together as the program scales.

For twelve years I've built those systems — anchored in PMI standards and PMBOK fluency, sharpened across PMP and PMI-ACP, and applied to every program I've owned. I've led 45+ specialists across geographies, defined human-in-the-loop frameworks for AI products serving Fortune 500 customers, and given executives the kind of clarity that turns ambiguous initiatives into confident go-decisions.

My work is quiet by design. Programs that ship on time, teams that scale without breaking, stakeholders who get answers before they ask. That's the bar.

I don't manage projects. I build the conditions under which complex AI programs become inevitable.

Impact

Outcomes, not
activity reports.

A snapshot of what disciplined program leadership produces when applied to AI delivery.

12+
Years leading complex, cross-functional programs across enterprise & AI-first orgs.
45+
Specialists led across global teams, time zones, and concurrent workstreams.
100%
Budget adherence across software-delivery programs at Ingenuity Gaming.
F500
Stakeholders briefed, aligned, and converted — from VPs to C-suite.
Experience

Twelve years.
One operating philosophy.

A selective view — the programs that shaped how I lead today.

  1. 2025 — Present

    AI Program Manager

    Puntt AI · Enterprise GenAI for Fortune 500 brands
    • Owns end-to-end program management for Fortune 500 accounts on a GenAI platform that compresses marketing & packaging asset approvals from weeks to hours.
    • Built the operational layer translating probabilistic AI output into reliable business outcomes — SOPs, evaluation rubrics, and continuous eval pipelines feeding reviewer signal back into the roadmap.
    • Leads a globally distributed reviewer organization with rater calibration, inter-rater reliability, and brand/compliance QA frameworks driving accuracy at scale.
    • Primary bridge between operations, product, and customer success — supporting retention and expansion through executive-grade reporting.
    AI Operations HITL Systems SLA Governance Executive Reporting
  2. Jan 2024 — 2025

    Program Manager

    HTPL · Gurgaon, India
    • Led cross-functional teams delivering multiple strategic programs with concurrent sub-projects — on time, on budget, and against shifting business priorities.
    • Partnered with business leadership to set priorities against resource capacity, risk exposure, and business value.
    • Built executive stakeholder relationships and developed strategic plans, milestones, and logistics workflows from the ground up.
    Strategic Programs Portfolio Planning Stakeholder Mgmt
  3. Nov 2021 — Aug 2023

    Project Manager

    Ingenuity Gaming · Noida, India
    • Led globally distributed teams of 45+ across multiple software-development projects, owning end-to-end delivery from pre-sales to release.
    • Drove Scrum execution: backlog grooming, sprint planning, KPIs, feature demos, and testing across concurrent workstreams.
    • Built project plans, schedules, budgets, dashboards, and analytics tracking delivery against goals — achieved 100% budget adherence.
    Scrum at Scale Global Teams End-to-End Delivery
  4. Sep 2020 — Nov 2021

    Management Consultant

    KPMG Global Services
    • Built financial dashboards, budgets, and forecasts tracking program performance against time, cost, and quality.
    • Led program and project teams delivering within budget, timeline, and quality expectations using Scrum methodologies.
    • Managed proposal development with sales teams; identified and mitigated risk; delivered comprehensive reporting to internal and external stakeholders.
    Consulting Financial Modeling Proposal Management
  5. Sep 2017 — Aug 2020

    Project Manager

    Livspace · New Delhi, India
    • Owned end-to-end project delivery aligned to senior leadership's strategic growth initiatives.
    • Managed implementation of an enterprise ERP system and led a digital-transformation program coordinating architects, developers, and QA.
    • Built and maintained project charters, plans, schedules, and RAID logs; managed change across project and operational support activities.
    Digital Transformation ERP Change Management
  6. Feb 2013 — Sep 2017

    Project Coordinator

    Cushman & Wakefield · Noida, India
    • Supervised multiple projects from kickoff through delivery — prioritizing needs, delegating across teams, and keeping schedules on track despite shifting priorities.
    • Built the foundation in classical delivery rigor that later let me operate AI programs with the same discipline as regulated enterprise software.
    Multi-project Delivery Cross-functional Coordination
Expertise

Where I create
the most leverage.

Three disciplines, deeply integrated. They are the difference between an AI demo and an AI program your customers can rely on.

01 / AI Operations

From model to operating system.

Designing the human-in-the-loop architecture, review workflows, and quality bars that make probabilistic systems behave like dependable products.

  • HITL workflow architecture
  • Quality & accuracy frameworks
  • Escalation & exception design
  • Throughput & latency tuning
02 / Program Strategy

Executive clarity at speed.

Translating ambiguous AI ambition into roadmaps, OKRs, and stakeholder narratives that earn — and keep — executive confidence.

  • Roadmap & OKR design
  • Executive & board reporting
  • Cross-functional alignment
  • Risk, dependency & mitigation
03 / Delivery Excellence

PMI discipline, applied at scale.

Twelve years of PMBOK-grounded program rigor — across PMP, PMI-ACP, SAFe, Agile, and Waterfall — applied so AI delivery scales without losing the quality bar.

  • PMI & PMBOK fluency
  • SAFe · Agile · Waterfall
  • RAID, RACI & risk management
  • Multi-program orchestration
Credentials & toolkit

Certified.
Not by accident.

The credentials are table stakes. The discipline they signal is the point.

Certifications

PMP
Project Management Professional
Project Management Institute (PMI)
ACP
PMI Agile Certified Practitioner
Project Management Institute (PMI)
AWS
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services

Education

IIM
Executive Post Graduate, Strategy Management
Indian Institute of Management · 2019–2020
BE
Bachelor of Engineering
Visvesvaraya Technological University · 2008–2012

Frameworks & Standards

PMI / PMBOK Agile · Scrum SAFe Kanban Waterfall RAID RACI Change Management Portfolio Management

Toolkit

Jira MS Project Smartsheet Asana Monday ClickUp Trello Zoho Projects Salesforce ChatGPT & Claude
How I work

The principles
behind the programs.

Operating principles I've earned the hard way — across twelve years, dozens of programs, and one constant: senior executives who needed certainty.

"Velocity without quality is just expensive activity. I design programs where rigor and speed reinforce each other instead of trading off."

On delivery

"Executives don't want status. They want certainty. My job is to convert ambiguity into the smallest possible set of decisions they have to make."

On stakeholders

"AI quality is not a model property. It's an operating property. The team, the workflow, and the feedback loop are the system."

On AI operations

"Forty-five people in five time zones is not a logistics problem. It's a clarity problem. Get that right and the work runs itself."

On global teams
Let's talk

Building something
ambitious?

If you're a founder, hiring leader, or executive scaling an AI program — I'd like to hear what you're building, what's in the way, and where I can help.

Replies within 24 hours