The Sunday Draft

If I had to pick one trait that has served me best across my professional journey, one quality keeps surfacing is: curiosity

It’s that quiet but persistent urge to ask “why?” or wonder “what if?” More than a personality trait, curiosity has shaped how I listen, learn, build, and lead. It’s the through-line that’s helped me navigate unfamiliar domains, build better products, and connect more deeply with the people I work with.

When Curiosity Opened New Doors

One of the most defining projects I’ve worked on was at KredX—building India’s first regulated international trade finance marketplace.

At the outset, we were facing tight timelines and dense regulatory frameworks. It would’ve been easy to play it safe, stick to templates, and just “get it done.” But instead, we approached the problem with genuine curiosity. We asked: What does a better experience look like for users navigating complex compliance requirements? What parts of the process feel unintuitive or brittle?

We didn’t treat user interviews as checkboxes. We asked questions we didn’t already have answers to. And we listened—not to validate—but to understand.

That mindset led us to challenge our initial assumptions and redesign significant portions of the product. It helped us uncover overlooked user needs and simplify complexity in meaningful ways. Ironically, it made us faster. We went from a rough idea to a fully operational marketplace in just seven months—not because we rushed, but because we paused to ask better questions early on.

Learning Across Domains

My career path has been anything but linear—from engineering and design consultancy at Mecon Limited to knowledge management at Citigroup to commercial banking (lending) at Axis Bank, and now building fintech platforms at KredX.

At each turn, I’ve had to shed the comfort of expertise and embrace the mindset of a learner.

Early in my career, working with large steel sector clients taught me lessons that didn’t seem immediately relevant to product management—but in hindsight, they’ve been foundational.

Designing for industrial clients meant navigating complex, interconnected systems. A decision about a beam’s design wasn’t just technical—it had downstream implications for safety, cost, operations, and compliance. I learned to approach problems with systems thinking, to break down complexity without losing sight of the big picture. That same skill is what helps me today when designing for layered fintech ecosystems—where regulatory, technical, and user considerations are deeply entwined.

Those projects also trained me to ask better questions. Not just “what do you want?” but “why is this needed?”, “how is it being used today?”, and “what are the constraints you haven’t said out loud yet?” That habit of curious inquiry—born in noisy factory floors and boardroom presentations—continues to shape how I approach product discovery and user research.

Just as importantly, I learned how to communicate across diverse stakeholder groups. In consulting, you often translate between the language of engineers, project managers, and C-suite decision-makers. In product management, I find myself doing much the same—bridging conversations between developers, designers, legal teams, and business heads.

So while steel and fintech may seem worlds apart, the soft skills I built early on—curiosity, systems thinking, stakeholder empathy—have turned out to be surprisingly durable companions on my product journey.

Asking Better Questions in Complex Systems

Working in fintech means living in a world of regulatory frameworks (anyone who’s worked with RBI and IFSCA regulations knows they aren’t exactly light reading!), legacy systems, and intricate stakeholder needs.

In environments like these, it’s easy to become reactive—to move fast, stick to precedent, and treat ambiguity as a blocker. But curiosity has helped me flip that instinct.

Instead of asking “how do we get this done fastest?”, I try to start with “what are we actually trying to achieve here?” That simple reframe has helped teams I’ve led uncover more creative and resilient solutions—ones that meet not just the immediate ask, but the long-term need.

I’ve also seen how modeling curiosity—especially as a leader—creates cultural permission. It’s easier for a team to admit what they don’t know, explore edge cases, or rethink an approach when they see you doing the same.

And in a domain like fintech, that flexibility is essential.

Curiosity Builds Connection

Beyond problem-solving, curiosity is a deeply human connector.

When I sit with engineers or designers and ask questions with genuine interest—not to evaluate, but to understand—it shifts the dynamic. Conversations become more open. Ideas flow more freely. We stop being representatives of separate functions and start becoming collaborators.

This mindset made a real difference during my time at Citigroup, leading a rollout across the ASPAC region. Every market had its own nuances, regulatory contexts and user behaviors. Rather than push for standardization, we led with curiosity. We asked: What’s unique here? What should we preserve? Where can we adapt? The resulting product wasn’t just compliant—it was culturally resonant.

I’m still learning to stay curious—to resist the pressure to have all the answers and embrace the freedom of saying “I don’t know, but I’d love to understand.”

Lately, curiosity has been guiding me through new territories—payments infrastructure, embedded finance, the evolving dynamics of decentralized finance, industries outside pure fintech like e-commerce, mobility, entertainment etc. Each space feels like an unfolding map, offering fresh questions and unexpected patterns.

Stay tuned for more such pieces, as I continue to walk this path, hoping to stay true to what makes it mine!