Mega Reshuffle At Tata Neu, 20 New Executives Take Seat At Digital Giant

Fraught with top-level exodus, Tata Digital, the digital arm of Tata Group, has reportedly rejigged the senior leadership team of its super app Tata Neu. 

As per Economic Times, Hardeep Singh Guru has been appointed as the new chief financial officer (CFO) while Gaurav Motani has been named as the new chief product officer (CPO).

Other major changes include the appointment of Seshadri Narsimhan as chief business officer (CBO) of key verticals such as grocery, health, fashion and new growth initiatives. Additionally, Abhimanyu Lal has been elevated as the company’s chief marketing officer (CMO) while Pavan Bargal will now helm supply chain operations.

According to a Business Standard report, other changes include the appointment of Anand Ramadurai as the CBO for flights while Aseem Sachdevawill now be CBO for electronics, while additionally overseeing the business finance function for commerce.

Here is the list of new appointments in alphabetical order: 

Abhimanyu Lal, CMO

Amreesh Kher, CBP (Insurance)

Anand Ramadurai, CBO (Flights)

Aseem Sachdeva, CBO (Electronics) (also, head of business finance function for commerce)

Gaurav Hazrati, CBO (credit card, lending, payments and investment)

Gaurav Motani, CPO

Hardeep Singh Guru, CFO

Janaki Naik, chief human officer and head of admin

Nagarajan Karuppiah, head of AI 

Neeraj Lal, head of risk and compliance

Nikhil Asopa, head of commerce operations

Pavan Baragal, head of supply chain

Poornima Sampath, General Counsel

Sheshadri Narasimhan, CBO (grocery, health, fashion and growth initiatives)

Sheran Mehra, CBO (Hotels) and brand advisor

Siddhartha Kargupta, chief data officer

Smitesh Valanju, chief information officer security officer

Sudeep Nayak, Head of engineering 

Sudhakar S, Company Secretary

Sunandan Das, chief delivery and information officer

The reshuffle comes just three months after Naveen Tahilyani took charge as the new CEO of Tata Digital, replacing Pratik Lal. The announcements were made in an internal mail to employees, which also reportedly stated that the majority of senior positions across Tata Digital were filled with existing team members.

As per the report, the top-deck rejig was undertaken with a focus on streamlining the existing leadership structure of the company and making the digital juggernaut nimbler and business-focussed.

For context, just 20 executives will now report to Tahilyani as against 35 who reported to ex CEO Pratik Lal. The new leadership structure came into effect from May 20. Adding further, the new CEO said that the new executive team structure will continue to evolve as the company fine tunes its “strategy and operating model”.

“… We have constructed a structure for the executive team which is built on principles of giving our leaders meaningful opportunity for impact, creating accountability along with empowerment, driving simplicity and clarity and most importantly encouraging collaboration and working together within Tata Digital and with our subsidiaries/group companies,” Tahilyani reportedly said.

In the internal note, the new CEO added that he will work closely, over the next few days, with each of the new appointees to discuss their “team structures” and seek feedback. On his future strategy, Tahilyani internally told employees that the super app will have to “fine tune the loyalty programme, invest in and leverage data for offers, find a better way to convey its proposition to the customers, improve customer experience and use financial services smartly to enhance customers stickiness”. 

This comes close on the heels of the departure of senior executives Bhanu Pathak, Shoumyan Biswas and Gaurav Porwal earlier this month. Meanwhile, both ex-CEO Pratik Pal and head of fintech vertical Modan Saha have moved back to parent Tata Sons.

Not just this, former Tata Digital president and Myntra cofounder Mukesh Bansal also left the digital juggernaut last year. Previously, there were reports that Tata Digital’s chief software architect Pavan Podila and Samir Aksekar, chief information security officer, were also on their way out.

The reshuffle also comes at a time when Tata Neu appears to have failed to take off. Despite the conglomerate spending billions of dollars on Tata Neu, the super app has not had the reception it hoped for. 

While the super app was launched in April 2022, its contribution reportedly remains less than 10% to the gross sales of grocery delivery platform BigBasket and epharmacy 1mg.