BYJU’S Top Exec Cherian Thomas Quits, Joins Impending Inc As CEO

In another high-level exit from beleaguered edtech giant BYJU’S, its SVP for international business, Cherian Thomas, has left the company.

Thomas has joined Impending Inc as its chief executive officer(CEO), the company said in a statement.

As the CEO of Impending, Thomas will focus on building and scaling the product portfolio while strengthening and growing the company’s global talent pool. 

The statement said that Thomas played an integral part in setting up the US operations at BYJU’S. Later, he also became the CEO of Osmo, which was acquired by BYJU’S for $120 Mn. 

Prior to this, he cofounded and sold a VC-backed startup, Cucumbertown, to Japanese conglomerate Cookpad in 2016. He was also one of the earliest employees at gaming major Zynga.

“Impending espouses everything I’d do if I were to start again,” said Thomas. “There’s no sword hanging with deadlines or metrics to impress a board. It’s all about executing, failing, evolving, re-releasing and scaling without being questioned,” he added.

US-based Impending works on Apple-focused studios in the world that has been
building for the Mac community since the early 2000s, and later the iPhone.

The exit comes at a time when edtech giant BYJU’S has let go of 100 employees as part of a performance review after having put the said employees on a performance improvement plan (PIP).

Recently, edtech startup Unacademy appointed BYJU’S-owned Aakash Educational Institute’s Anurag Tiwari as the National Academic Director for its physical classes division, who served as the National Academic Director at Aakash.

The edtech giant has been struggling with multiple issues including cash flow issues, legal trouble with lenders, multiple rounds of layoffs, resignation of board members, valuation markdowns and delayed financial reporting.

BYJU’S net loss soared 20X year-on-year (YoY) to INR 4,588 Cr in FY21, while it is yet to file its financial statements for FY22 and FY23.