[Update] Ex-Ola CBO Sidharth Shakdher Joins Paytm

Former Ola Consumer CBO Sidharth Shakdher has joined fintech major Paytm as a business head of a business unit, sources told Inc42.

“Sidharth has joined Paytm as business head of a business unit. In his new role, Shakdher will collaborate with Paytm’s founder and CEO to enhance the company’s growth and focus on financial success,” sources told Inc42.

The development comes weeks after Inc42 reported that Shakdher quit Ola Consumer within nine months of joining the Bhavish Aggarwal-led company.

Inc42 has reached out to Paytm seeking details on the new appointment. The story will be updated on receiving a response. 

During his engagement with Ola Consumer, Shakdher led the company’s growth, revenue, category ops and marketing feature. According to his LinkedIn, he also built and led new businesses – ecommerce, financial services, and AI cloud services. 

His departure marked the second exit by a senior executive at Ola Consumer this year. Earlier in May, its chief financial officer Karthik Gupta also put down his papers. Back then, the company said that Gupta’s departure was a part of a wider restructuring exercise undertaken by it to strengthen its cost structures, focus on growth and increase its bottom line.

Prior to joining Ola, Shakdher worked with Disney+ Hotstar for about eight years. During his time with the OTT platform, he held key positions across business, marketing and business verticals.

He has joined Paytm as its CMO about six months after the exit of former CMO Sumit Mathur in April. From Paytm, Mathur moved to sports nutrition company Glanbia Performance Nutrition as its country head- India and South Asia.

The development comes a day after the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company posted a consolidated profit after tax (PAT) of INR 930 Cr in Q2 FY25 as against a loss of INR 292 Cr in the year-ago period. The company posted a profitable quarter on the back of the sale of its ticketing business to Zomato.

The fintech giant’s revenue from operations fell 34% year-on-year to INR 1,1660 Cr in the reported quarter from INR 2,519 Cr in the year-ago period.

(The story has been updated to incorporate Paytm’s response.)

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