Ankit Sourabh Lakra

LEAD School

May 2022 - Jan 2026 • 3.7 yrs

Inherited school retention at 67–70%, a business metric that had historically never crossed 80%, and rebuilt it to 92%+ over three academic years by redesigning the customer retention operating model. The transformation contributed to the company's first-ever 100%+ Overall Value Retention (OVR) and established a projected 93% Base Value Retention (BVR) for AY25–26. Identified Implementation as the strongest leading indicator of school renewal, replacing traditional lagging metrics with an execution-focused operating model. Built the organisation around Implementation Health, creating a measurable correlation between classroom adoption, customer satisfaction, and renewal outcomes (Good Implementation: 90% retention | Average: 80% | Low: 70% | No Implementation: 45%). Partnered with Analytics to design a predictive retention engine using 100+ operational, behavioural and customer variables, achieving 85%+ prediction accuracy and enabling proactive interventions 60–90 days before renewal risk materialised. Converted retention insights into business strategy by recommending changes across service delivery, training, customer engagement, implementation governance and product deployment, with adopted recommendations becoming key contributors to record-breaking retention performance. Conceived and led the Great School Start program after identifying that most customer churn originated during the first 90 days of a school's lifecycle rather than at renewal. Built the complete operating framework including SOPs, milestone governance, training, dashboards and review mechanisms, reducing School Start attrition from 25%+ to below 10% within three academic years. Redesigned national field execution by introducing structured implementation playbooks based on the Problem–Diagnose–Solve (PDS) framework and coached 200+ field associates, creating consistent customer engagement practices across the organisation. Improved execution visibility by redesigning milestone capture and field governance systems, reducing reporting time from over 5 minutes to under 45 seconds while simultaneously improving milestone compliance from 80% to 100%. Solved a major operational constraint by increasing Hardware Suciency across partner schools from below 65%to 97%+ , ensuring uninterrupted classroom implementation, higher product adoption and stronger customer outcomes. Re-engineered the field service model by prioritising customer visits based on school value, implementation health, customer risk and portfolio importance, balancing customer satisfaction with operational cost discipline. Accelerated enterprise-wide adoption of the Productivity App across 200+ distributed field associates, achieving 100% adoption within 14 days and establishing real-time visibility into field productivity and customer engagement. Optimised field operations by redesigning visit planning, utilisation and expense governance, reducing cost per field visit by 24% and claims per visit by 11% within three months while maintaining customer coverage. Led Shiksha Awards, India's largest school recognition initiative, engaging 5,500+ schools and 65,000+ teachers. Created a recognition-led engagement model where participating schools achieved 99%+ retention, strengthening long-term customer relationships and brand advocacy. Schools served: 3,500+ , Teachers impacted: 35,000+ , Students impacted: 14,00,000+ , Portfolio influenced: Rs 255 Cr, Retention responsibility: Rs 255 Cr

BYJU'S

Mar 2020 - Apr 2022 • 2.1 yrs

Built the demand generation and sales enablement architecture for BYJU'S LIVE Classes (JEE/NEET), identifying that the primary challenge was low purchase intent rather than product quality. Redesigned the acquisition funnel around high-intent engagement models, increasing conversion from 2% (default app journey)to 8% (mock tests) and 12% (BNAT scholarship tests). Played a strategic role in scaling BYJU'S new LIVE Classes business, contributing to 55,000 enrolments and approximately ₹235 Crore in first-year revenue, establishing the commercial viability of the LIVE learning model. Conceived and launched BYJU'S National Aptitude Test (BNAT) as a nationwide scholarship and lead generation platform, attracting 10 lakh registrations and 3.6 lakh test participants, creating an industry benchmark for online scholarship examinations and becoming one of BYJU'S highest-performing acquisition channels. Designed and led BYJU'S AIM, India's largest national mock test series for JEE Main, JEE Advanced, and NEET, engaging 1.9 lakh registrations and 90,000 active participants, significantly strengthening student engagement and top-of-funnel demand generation. Established a scalable lead nurturing ecosystem by designing automated customer engagement journeys through email campaigns and behavioural workflows, improving lead qualification, customer education, and sales readiness across the acquisition funnel. Partnered with SEO, Product, UX, and Content teams to transform the JEE/NEET learning platform into one of India's largest organic acquisition engines, helping scale monthly trac to over 1 million users and generating 90,000+ qualified leads every month through 1,000+ high-value content pages. Led the design of the hybrid classroom operating model for BYJU'S Tuition Centres, creating stakeholder-specific customer journeys, operating frameworks, and process blueprints that standardized academic operations across 70% of business functions and became the foundation for large-scale rollout. Designed and implemented a CRM-driven faculty recruitment platform, automating hiring operations for 1,600+ teachers across 250+ tuition centres, accelerating onboarding by 30% while maintaining less than 4% process leakage throughout the hiring funnel. Functioned as the Sales Enablement Strategy lead, building sales programs, customer journeys, operational playbooks, and decision-support frameworks that simplified frontline selling and improved overall funnel eciency. Strengthened academic delivery quality by introducing audit mechanisms, structured peer reviews, and faculty self-learning frameworks, increasing faculty satisfaction from 19% to 68% and improving readiness for hybrid classroom delivery at scale. Partnered with business, product, marketing, academics, technology, and operations teams to align customer acquisition, classroom experience, and commercial strategy, enabling rapid scale-up of one of BYJU'S fastest-growing business verticals.

Resonance Eduventures Ltd

May 2017 - Feb 2020 • 2.8 yrs

Led the digital transformation of student acquisition and enrollment operations by designing and deploying a unified Lead Management System (LMS) across 46 centres, integrating YCCP, PCCP, and DLPD divisions into a single lead lifecycle and eliminating fragmented enrollment tracking. Re-engineered the admission funnel by automating lead allocation, follow-ups, and approval workflows, reducing lead first-response time from 2 days to 2 hours, improving customer responsiveness and significantly strengthening admission conversion eciency. Eliminated manual dependencies across enrollment operations through CRM integration and workflow automation, improving manpower utilisation by 20% while creating a scalable operating model for multi-centre admissions management. Identified paper evaluation and disconnected admission workflows as key bottlenecks in the conversion journey and redesigned the scholarship-to-admission process, reducing the overall admission cycle by 2 days through process standardisation and system integration. Designed and implemented automated SMS and Email lead nurturing journeys, enabling personalised communication throughout the admission lifecycle and improving engagement, counselling eectiveness, and enrollment conversion. Managed complete operations of the Ranchi Study Centre, leading an 8-member team across student counselling, admissions, fee collection, inventory management, grievance resolution, academic operations, and examination administration while ensuring smooth centre operations and customer satisfaction. Improved fee recovery by 10% through structured collection planning, stronger parent engagement, and disciplined financial follow-up, strengthening centre-level cash flow and revenue realization. Reduced annual student attrition by 89.83%, bringing dropout levels down from 45% to 4.5%, by designing and executing a structured three-pillar student retention framework focused on academic intervention, financial commitment, and parent engagement. Redesigned the fee collection strategy by introducing early fee recovery models, flexible payment structures, and advance-payment incentives, improving student commitment and significantly reducing financial-driven attrition. Built a structured Parent Value Perception Framework through proactive communication of academic progress, mock test performance, rankings, and student achievements, strengthening parent confidence and improving fee renewal and student retention. Partnered directly with the Chief Executive Ocer to drive strategic automation initiatives, including piloting an AI-enabled Facebook Messenger chatbot to improve admission enquiry handling, reduce response times, and enhance the prospective student experience.

Ericsson

Apr 2012 - Jun 2014 • 2.2 yrs

Managed Level-2 Network Assurance Operations for multiple global telecom operators, providing production support for OSS-RC and ENIQ Network Management Systems across multi-vendor network environments. Delivered 100% SLA compliance on all accepted incidents by ensuring timely diagnosis, troubleshooting, and resolution of critical network issues while maintaining high service availability. Supported telecom operations across multiple international customer accounts including Airtel, Idea, Aircel, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, ensuring uninterrupted network monitoring and operational continuity. Performed root cause analysis for complex network incidents, collaborating with cross- functional engineering and support teams to minimise service disruption and improve incident resolution eciency. Developed troubleshooting guides, knowledge repositories, and standard operating procedures that improved incident handling consistency and reduced dependency on senior engineers. Worked closely with global delivery teams, customer support, and engineering functions to ensure seamless service delivery, operational governance, and adherence to customer SLAs.