Scaling with Purpose: Vymo’s CEO on transforming frontline sales in BFSI

Yamini Bhat, CEO and Co-founder of Vymo, shares how the company has grown from addressing lead management challenges to becoming a comprehensive sales engagement platform for financial institutions. Built to support frontline teams with intelligent, real-time guidance, Vymo now serves as a leading enterprises across India, Southeast Asia and the US. Yamini attributes this growth to a strong focus on user needs, measurable outcomes and a commitment to building with purpose.

Q1: You started Vymo at a time when AI and automation were still emerging. What was the turning point that pushed you to solve for frontline sales productivity?
In my years advising market leading enterprises at McKinsey, a pattern became painfully clear: frontline salespeople were buried under process. CRM systems, intended to be enablers, had become an administrative burden. Reps were logging calls after the fact, juggling systems that weren’t designed to help them close the next sale, just to check a box.

That disconnect between intention and impact was the trigger. It wasn’t just inefficient, it was a lost opportunity - to be out selling. The best salespeople thrive on momentum, not admin. So we built Vymo, not as another data entry tool, but as a Sales Engagement Platform that proactively guides behavior where to be, who to engage, and what to do next based on context and intent.

So instead of expecting the field to adapt to technology, we asked: what if technology could adapt to the field? This vision still drives us.

Q2: From a lead management tool to a full-fledged sales engagement platform, how did your vision for Vymo evolve as the market matured?
We started by solving what was visibly broken in lead management. But once we embedded ourselves into our customers’ workflows, it became evident that the real friction lay across the entire sales lifecycle. From onboarding to activity tracking to manager interventions, every step lacked visibility and structure. So we didn’t just extend features, we re-architected the platform to become a comprehensive engagement layer. Today, Vymo empowers financial institutions to drive field force productivity, deepen customer connections, and eliminate process inefficiencies. This wasn’t a pivot driven by market hype, it was a response to the ground reality we observed repeatedly. There are plenty of lead management systems now but Vymo stands out in how we orchestrate the lifecycle of a seller and at a micro-level, a day in their life.

Q3: With CollectIQ, you're expanding into deeper vertical-specific problems in BFSI. What gaps are you solving now that weren’t obvious earlier?
Collections had long been treated as an afterthought, an operational tail-end disconnected from revenue strategy. But as we engaged deeper with BFSI leaders, the signal was unmistakable: missed collections were not just a cost issue, they were a trust and risk issue. CollectIQ was built to bring foresight and systematization to this space. Agents now engage with precision, armed with next-best actions, contextual nudges, and behavioral signals. Managers move from being reactive to proactively driving outcomes. This shift from transactional firefighting to strategic engagement is what we’re enabling.

Q4: Building a new category often means educating the market. How did you convince large institutions to back something that didn’t yet exist?
You don’t create a new category by pitching possibilities. You earn it by proving value. Our approach was deliberate: start small, deliver tangible outcomes, and scale trust. Pilots that showed clear productivity gains and uplift in conversion metrics became our strongest evangelists. We were fortunate that our early mandates came from market leaders, institutions that were not only willing to take the lead but also committed to rethinking how sales and distribution should work in a mobile-first world. Like in any industry, there are early adopters and fast followers. What helped was Vymo’s ability to bring solutions to market faster and accelerate the transformation journey. We operationalised our vision quickly and showed what good could look like. That’s what gave us the credibility to scale. Equally important was aligning both business and IT stakeholders early in the process. Sustainable adoption in large institutions comes from shared ownership. These organisations may not move fast, but when the value is unambiguous, they move decisively. Our job was to make that value impossible to ignore.

Q5: Your approach has always been mobile-first and seller-centric. How has staying close to the user shaped your product and culture over time?
We built Vymo for the users, not the boardroom. That meant designing for users who work on the go- navigating traffic, handling clients, and juggling paperwork. Mobile wasn’t a strategy, it was reality. And to stay honest to that reality, we institutionalized field immersions. Our teams observe, learn, and evolve the product based on what sellers need, not what we assume they do. This tight feedback loop keeps us grounded, agile, and deeply attuned to the problems that truly matter.

Q6: As a woman entrepreneur building a global SaaS company from India, what have been your key learnings in building credibility and leading with impact?
Credibility is something you earn by delivering real outcomes, consistently. For me, that means staying close to the customer, not getting distracted by what the competition is doing. When you are building something from India for the world, you have to be especially clear about the value you are creating and keep showing up for your users, day after day. I have also learned to slow down to speed up. Scaling brings its own set of challenges, and we have made our share of mistakes. But those moments have taught me to be deliberate and build strong foundations before chasing velocity. What truly sets you apart over time isn’t the product, it’s the team behind it and the culture that keeps them moving with purpose.
And finally, presence matters. As a woman founder, I have learned that how you show up has a lasting impact: for your team, peers, and for the next set of leaders watching from the sidelines. I have made room for our journey to be visible so others might see a path forward for themselves too.

Q7: With Vymo now operating across India, Asia, and the US, what does the next phase of global growth look like for you and your team?
In India and Southeast Asia, we work with most of the market leaders; our focus is to drive value through depth and multiple high-RoI products that we extend to them. It is still early years in the US for us and rapid iteration has been crucial to learning. Delivering disproportionate outcomes to our early customers has been the focus. For this we have needed to build anchored teams, understand regulatory nuances and re-align our product to the market. But regardless of geography, our vision is consistent: to be the productivity suite for financial services, one that empowers their workforces to be proactive, effective, and customer-centric.