IPO-Bound Paytm Elevates 4 People As CBO Including Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s Brother

IPO-bound Paytm has promoted Ajay Shekhar Sharma — brother of its founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma — as its chief business officer (CBO) of its Marketing Cloud Business, which provides cloud services to telecom companies and enterprises. The company has promoted four executives as CBOs for its other verticals in recent months.

Prior to this, Ajay was the acting senior vice president of the fintech startup. The elevation of Ajay Shekhar Sharma was announced on his LinkedIn profile.

Ajay, who started as the manager for sales in Paytm in 2006, has been allotted a total of 13,463 equity shares to date, according to the DRHP filings accessed by Inc42. Till now, Ajay wasn’t a part of the company’s key managerial team officially and with the elevation, he now becomes a part of the top decision-making team.

Besides Ajay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm has also elevated Senior VPs Ripunjai Gaur, and Abhay Sharma to CBO for Offline Payments and Bill Payments verticals respectively.

Founded in 2009 by Vijay Sharma, One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm, filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for public listing earlier this year. With the IPO, the unicorn aims to raise INR 16,600 Cr. Its offer comprises a fresh issue of INR 8,300 Cr and an offer for sale (OFS) worth INR 8,300 Cr.

It has diversified its business into various fintech segments, including Paytm Payments Bank, Paytm General Insurance, Paytm Life Insurance, Paytm Money, Paytm E-Commerce, Paytm Entertainment, among other smaller entities.

According to a story done earlier by Inc42 (based on an analyst report), the company may break even in the coming 12-18 months. The hiring and the internal promotions can be equated to its strategy to create value through building multiple businesses around the core company.

Besides, the startup recently also saw a mark up in its IPO valuation by T Rowe by over 16%. The valuation comes at a time when the fintech startup saw its overall revenue drop to 9.9% from INR 3,540.77 in FY20 to INR 3,186.8 in FY21 on a consolidated basis.

Update | 9th September 11:13 PM

Ajay Shekhar Sharma’s designation updated from CBO to CBO of Marketing Cloud Business.

Details of 2 more recent appointments for the CBO posts included.

Headline updated to include other recent hires

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