Venture with Grace Akankshu Dhawan, SVP Product Xero: AI-Driven Growth for Small Business
Sep 24, 2025
Akankshu Dhawan, SVP of Product Management at Xero, shares his expertise in leveraging AI for small business transformation. He discusses his journey from software engineer to product leader, and the groundbreaking projects he spearheaded at Uber. Akankshu highlights the vital role of AI in modernizing accounting and finance, and he explains the creation of JAX, Xero's innovative financial agent. He also dives into team empowerment, the importance of user empathy, and the strategic decision-making behind building versus buying core features.
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From Engineer To AI Product Leader
- Akankshu traced his path from Microsoft engineer to product leader through curiosity, side projects, and a PM pivot that felt like a promotion trial.
- He rode cloud, AppDynamics, Uber, and startups before joining Xero to focus on small-business AI.
Three Buckets For Product Leadership
- Spend time understanding business context, talking to customers, and aligning leadership strategy.
- Coach and recruit your team while staying involved in product design and AI tradeoffs.
AI Reimagines Accounting Workflows
- AI will reimagine accounting workflows but must be introduced conservatively with confidence thresholds.
- Xero built JAX to analyze transactions and act only when highly confident, otherwise suggest actions.
