Surabhi Manchalwar

Who they are

Surabhi Manchalwar is Head of Design, Business & Web Platforms at PhonePe — a National Institute of Design graduate who has grown from Lead UX Designer to design head across six years at one of India's largest fintech platforms.

Person

Surabhi trained in Graphic Design at the National Institute of Design (2009–2013), one of India's most selective design schools, and started her career doing freelance illustration and graphic design before joining Ducere Technologies as a Senior Graphic Designer. She then moved to Moonraft Innovation Labs, a design consultancy, where she progressed from Lead Designer in Bengaluru to UX Design Lead in Johannesburg — an international posting that signals she was trusted early with client-facing work in unfamiliar markets. Possibly — that stint abroad sharpened her ability to design for users whose context she couldn't assume. She joined PhonePe in March 2019 when it was already a growing fintech platform but well before it reached its current scale — and has climbed steadily through Lead UX Designer, Product Design Manager, and now Head of Design, Business & Web Platforms, all within the same company. The through-line is a move from visual craft toward product systems: from freelance illustration to agency UX to in-house design leadership at a platform processing over 330 million transactions daily. Her public writing signal is active on LinkedIn, though the specific themes she publishes on aren't detailed in available claims.

Company

PhonePe's most live story right now is a deferred IPO: SEBI approved the listing in January 2026 targeting a $15 billion valuation and Rs 12,000 crore raised via offer for sale, but geopolitical tensions and global market volatility pushed the listing back — with some reports citing a revised valuation range of $9–10.5 billion. Before the delay, General Atlantic injected $600 million at a $14.5 billion valuation, bringing total fundraising to about $1.6 billion across four rounds. On the product side, PhonePe crossed 700 million registered users in April 2026 and launched AI-powered merchant tools including SmartPages in mid-2026, alongside in-app ITR and GST filing features in July 2026 — a clear push to diversify beyond the payments core. The company also acquired GigIndia and appointed Mrigakshi Kaul as Head of Privacy Compliance in 2026, signaling both distribution ambitions and regulatory readiness ahead of any eventual listing.

Market

PhonePe holds approximately 47% of India's UPI market by volume and 50% by value as of 2026, with Google Pay and Paytm as its closest rivals — together PhonePe and Google Pay control over 80% of the market. The competitive picture is complicated by NPCI's proposed 30% market share cap per UPI app, deferred to December 2026, which would require PhonePe to shrink its share significantly if implemented. A structural tension underpins the IPO narrative: 95% of revenue still comes from payments, and the financial services push into insurance, lending, and tax filing is still a small slice — making the revenue-diversification story a work in progress.

How they likely show up

Six-plus years at PhonePe across three progressively senior roles → likely thinks in product cycles and institutional context, not quick wins; she knows where the bodies are buried.
Career arc from freelance illustrator → agency UX lead → in-house design head → suggests someone who chose depth over variety at each stage, moving toward ownership rather than breadth.
International posting at Moonraft in Johannesburg → comfortable operating in unfamiliar contexts and probably doesn't need heavy cultural hand-holding when working with new teams or markets.
National Institute of Design background → craft and visual rigour likely show up in how she evaluates work; she'll notice sloppy execution before she notices sloppy strategy.
Active LinkedIn public writing signal → comfortable being visible professionally; likely engages substantively with comments rather than just broadcasting.
Role covers Business & Web Platforms specifically → her design scope is oriented toward merchant-facing and business surfaces, not just consumer UX — she's thinking about conversion and tooling, not just delight.

Conversation tips

→ Ask about designing for merchants specifically — her title names Business & Web Platforms, so she has opinions on that surface that most consumer-UX conversations miss.
→ Reference the scale she operates at — 700 million users and 50 million merchants isn't abstract to her; questions that acknowledge that constraint land better than generic design-process talk.
→ Her NID background is likely a point of professional identity — acknowledging the craft foundation (rather than treating her purely as a product leader) will resonate.
→ She's been through PhonePe's growth from mid-stage startup to IPO-ready platform — questions about what changed in design practice as the company scaled will get real answers, not rehearsed ones.
→ If you post on LinkedIn yourself, she's likely to have noticed — come prepared to reference something specific from her feed rather than asking what she writes about.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the SmartPages launch — PhonePe shipped AI-powered merchant tools in mid-2026, and her role covers Business & Web Platforms directly, so she almost certainly has a point of view on what that product needed to be.
Reference the IPO deferral dynamic — SEBI approved in January 2026, then markets moved and the listing stalled; design teams at IPO-stage companies face a specific kind of internal pressure, and she's living it.
Mention the NID-to-fintech arc — moving from Ahmedabad's most rigorous design school to one of India's largest payments platforms is an unusual trajectory worth asking about on its own terms.

Discovery questions

Designing for 50 million merchants is a very different problem than designing for consumers — how has your thinking about the business-platform surface evolved as PhonePe has scaled?
With 95% of revenue still in payments and a push into ITR filing and financial services, how do you scope design when the product is expanding into territory users don't yet associate with PhonePe?
You've been at PhonePe through Lead UX, Product Design Manager, and now Head of Design — what changed most in how design actually works inside the company as it moved toward IPO readiness?

Avoid

Don't treat her primarily as a consumer-app designer — her mandate is Business & Web Platforms, and opening with consumer UX assumptions will signal you haven't read the brief.

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