Syed Maaz Saif
Senior Product Manager: Telecom, Fintech & GenAI
Syed Maaz Saif is a Senior Product Manager based in Islamabad, Pakistan, with more than six years across telecom, fintech, and GenAI. His work centres on consumer products built on top of mobile operator rails (voice, SMS, and carrier billing), channels that already reach mass-market users in emerging markets but demand sharper commercial and operational design than typical app-first products.
Most recently, at Viamo, he leads platform and commercial strategy for AVA (Ask Viamo Anything), a GenAI-powered voice IVR service that lets users dial a mobile shortcode to ask questions in Urdu or English and receive AI-generated spoken answers, without internet access or a smartphone. His work has been central to partnering with two of Pakistan's three largest mobile operators and establishing a repeatable commercial model for AI deployment over telecom infrastructure.
Before that, Maaz spent five years at China Mobile Pakistan (Zong), where he built and scaled digital VAS products from zero to PKR 100M+ in monthly digital revenue across his portfolio. He grew the Zong Engage esports platform 6× (from PKR 2M to PKR 12M per month) through competitive gaming tournaments, live events, and a subscription model embedded within the operator ecosystem. The Manhunt tournament series he built onboarded 26,000+ gamers and generated 390,000 YouTube views.
After Zong, Maaz worked on digital product at Mobilink Microfinance Bank in 2025, contributing to the redesign of the Dost digital banking app, moving account opening, lending, and partner integrations into cleaner self-serve flows for underbanked customers across Pakistan.
Since mid-2025, Maaz has also worked as an independent product consultant. He is product partner to the founder of an early-stage AI knowledge product, taking it from web to a white-label mobile subscription app, and has built his own products, including Cartwren, a shared household grocery and budget app, and Career Copilot, an open-source job-search tool.
He holds a Project Management Specialization from LUMS (2025) and a Bachelor of Business Administration from SZABIST Islamabad (2019).
Maaz is open to fractional engagements (10–20 hours per week) and full-time remote PM roles. He brings deep expertise in MNO partnerships, VAS commercial modelling, revenue-share negotiations, IVR/OBD infrastructure, and product strategy for emerging markets.