Eternal Appoints Aditya Mangla As Food Delivery CEO

Foodtech major Eternal has appointed Aditya Mangla as the CEO of its food ordering and delivery business.

Mangla will succeed Rakesh Ranjan, who has completed his two-year stint as the CEO of the vertical. He also ceased to be a senior management personnel (SMP) from July 6, Eternal said in an exchange filing.

Mangla has also been designated as SMP. Prior to this, Mangla, who joined Eternal in 2021, was serving as the head of product for food ordering and delivery. He has held multiple leadership roles in the food delivery business, including head of supply and head of customer experience. 

Overall, he has an experience of over 20 years and has worked with companies like Bloomberg, HCL Technologies, and more, prior to joining the Deepinder Goyal-led company.

This comes three months after Ranjan’s resignation was reported in April. He continues to be associated with the company.

In Eternal’s Q4 shareholders’ letter released in May, Goyal had confirmed that Ranjan would be relinquishing the post of food delivery CEO. “Getting new people to look at the business has always helped, and we are doing an internal leadership re-shuffle to get fresh perspectives into the business,” he said then.

In his email announcing Mangla’s appointment, Goyal said, “We need leaders who believe that building the right culture in the organisation is the most important job on our hands. And that entails taking hard calls around getting the right people off the bus, and putting the right people in the right places.

The change comes at a time when Eternal’s food delivery business is seeing sluggish growth. 

Food Delivery Slows Down 

In Q4 FY25, Zomato’s revenue grew 18% YoY to INR 2,054 Cr as against Blinkit’s 122% revenue growth to INR 1,709 Cr. Goyal admitted that the growth of the food delivery sector was below the company’s expectations during the quarter. 

The company cited shortage of delivery workers due to high demand from quick commerce platforms, sluggish demand environment, cannibalisation of food delivery by quick commerce, and its decision to delist 19,000 restaurants as the reason behind the slow growth of the food delivery business.

Meanwhile, the competition in the food delivery space is also about to increase as ride-hailing unicorn Rapido is entering the segment to break the Zomato-Swiggy duopoly. Besides, restaurant partners continue to be miffed with Zomato. The company’s decision to levy a long-distance fee has emerged as the latest flashpoint.

Shares of Eternal ended today’s trading session 1% lower at INR 258.65 on the BSE.