Mobikwik Financial Services CEO Quits, Joins Tata Digital As CBO

Tata Digital, the ecommerce arm of the salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Sons, has appointed former Mobikwik executive Mukul Saxena as the chief business officer (CBO).

Saxena, who joined the fintech unicorn as the CEO of MobiKwik’s financial services and Zaakpay units in May 2022, has also held key positions at IndusInd Bank and HSBC Saudi Arabia.

According to Saxena’s LinkedIn profile, he will lead the product, P&L and new initiatives in the fintech business at Tata Digital.

Saxena’s appointment comes as Tata Digital has been competing with Reliance Retail to pick up some of the biggest startups in India and create a full-stack digital experience for users. The digital arm of Mumbai-based Tata Sons has already set up a super app, Tata Neu, to offer such an experience.

Tata Digital also conducted a large-scale reshuffle of its leadership earlier this year to compete better across all fronts.

In June this year, Shivcharan Pulugurtha, chief strategy and business officer of Tata Neu, left the company. Meanwhile, Tata Digital has appointed former Nykaa chief business officer Gopal Asthana as the CEO of Tata CLiQ.

Further, Vinay Choletti, former head of WhatsApp Pay in India, also joined Tata Digital.

Tata Digital houses multiple ecommerce entities, including Tata 1mg, BigBasket, Tata CLiQ and Tata Neu, among others.

The most recent startup addition to Tata’s kitty has been the jewelry startup CaratLane, which Tata acquired via its watchmaking entity Titan.

Titan will soon complete a 100% acquisition of CaratLane at a valuation of $2 Bn, having already raised its stake to more than 98% of the startup at the same valuation.

The deal was also one of the largest exits a set of ecommerce founders ever had since Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal exited after the ecommerce giant’s acquisition by Walmart.

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