Movers And Shakers Of The Week [19 June – 24 June]

Gautam Mago, the MD of VC investment firm, Sequoia India has announced his departure from the company. He would transition away from the current role. Gautam Mago’s further plans are not known as yet.

Gautam Mago was involved in at least 16 of the firm’s portfolio deals which include tech and non-tech both. He is an alum of IIM Calcutta from the 2004 batch. Prior to that, he had finished his Masters in Business from Mumbai University. He started his VC career as an analyst for Arthur Andersen. From there, he progressed to working as an Associate with global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Mago joined Sequoia India in August 2009.

Also, Innoven Capital co-founders, Ajay Hattangdi and Vinod Murali have put in their papers to launch their own venture debt fund. They had launched the venture fund Innoven Capital along with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek. Reportedly, Temasek has roped in an executive search firm to look for a replacement. Hattangdi was the India CEO at Innoven, driving international expansion in Southeast Asia and China as well. Murali was deputy CEO of India operations.

Let’s Have A Look At The Other Movers And Shakers Of The Week

LetsVenture Brings Farooq Oomerbhoy On Board

LetsVenture will now enable Pre-Series A and Series A/B deals. With this goal, LetsVenture will focus on bringing family offices and corporates on a private, curated and interpersonal platform, under the LetsVenture brand, which will allow them to co-invest with VCs and funds leading Series A/B deals while also sourcing and managing quality deal flow directly for family offices and corporates.

LetsVenture has thus brought on board Farooq Oomerbhoy as a Partner (Consultant) to lead this initiative.

Farooq Oomerbhoy is an active, early-stage investor. He is credited with being one of the first few investors to back the early-stage venture space in India. This enabled him to be the co-founder of Orios Venture Partners, India’s largest domestically raised venture vapital fund, with a corpus of US$50M.

Before Orios, Farooq was a founding representative of the Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Chapter. He has personally invested in over 16 Indian early-stage companies, which have received further funding from funds such as Sequoia, Tenaya, Nexus Ventures, NEA, Matrix, Qualcomm, and PCCW. Some of his successful investments include Druva, Jigsee, PrettySecrets, BirdsEye, BoxMySpace, PescaFresh, FabAlley, CareOnGo and others. Farooq also currently serves on the mentor board of IvyCap Ventures.

Criteo Appoints Siddharth Dabhade As India GM

Delhi-based performance marketing technology company Criteo has appointed Siddharth Dabhade as General Manager India, to lead the growth of the company’s fastest growing market.

Siddharth will provide strategic direction and further accelerate the growth of Criteo’s India business, with a portfolio of customers that currently includes Flipkart, Shopclues, ABO, Nykaa, Urban Ladder, MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Goibibo and other leading ecommerce and online travel companies.

Siddharth will be responsible for the business development and for the expansion of existing advertiser relationships in the Indian market. He shall advise large ecommerce and online travel firms on how to drive more sales using the predictive engine technology of Criteo. His key focus shall be on building product and partnership strategies and shaping the future of personalised marketing strategies.

Siddharth has an extensive experience in the technology industry and has worked with major technology giants like Google, Microsoft, and IBM. Having worked with Google for almost seven years, Siddharth was heading its India travel business and was responsible for building C-level relationships.

Ather Energy Hires COO

Bengaluru-based Ather Energy, the smart electric two-wheeler startup, has appointed Dr. Venkatesh Padmanabhan as the Chief Operating Officer. Fondly known as Venki, he will head supply chain, quality, manufacturing, and service delivery at Ather.

Venki’s career has taken him to multiple countries and multiple automotive companies. He has a strong knowledge base of the operational requirements for an automotive company, specially two wheelers.

After 15 years at General Motors, in 2004 Dr. Padmanabhan joined Daimler Chrysler’s (DCX) Chrysler Division to support the integration of Lean Manufacturing in its diverse operations and later also worked at Mercedes Car Division. He was brought to India in 2007 as Managing Director of Chrysler’s first Southeast Asia Global Sourcing Centre in Chennai from where the company today sources close to $1 Bn every year in automotive parts.

Later, he joined Royal Enfield as Chief Operating Officer in 2008 and rose to the position of Chief Executive Officer in 2011.  In 2013, Dr. Padmanabhan also served as the MD & CEO of EICL (English Indian Clays Limited) and moved to Cyient in October 2015.

POKKT Appoints Abdul Wahab As VP, Global Delivery Head

POKKT, India’s & SEA’s leading smartphone advertising platform for mobile games has appointed Abdul Wahab as Vice President, Global Delivery Head. Abdul will be responsible for timely delivery of campaigns, optimising cost, maintain KPIs towards the goals targeted, strengthening and exploring new partnerships with mobile game publishers. Abdul will report to POKKT’s COO & CO-founder, Vaibhav Odhekar.

Abdul brings 13+ years of relevant industry experience to his new role having previously served as Senior Director-Supply and Delivery at C1 Exchange. He was handling the entire business operations from onboarding supply and programmatic delivery, for the US and APMEA region.

He has also worked in leadership roles with several top companies like Vizury, Vserv, Ibibo, and Zenith Optimedia. He has a complete understanding of the online advertising marketplace and has been a significant contributor to both business and technical aspects of ad Serving. His key accomplishments include delivering scale and value to the stakeholders.

Vipin Kalra Joins BankBazaar

BankBazaar has appointed fintech stalwart Vipin Kalra to lead the business growth and replicate the company’s India success story globally. Vipin is a seasoned global payments expert who brings over 25 years’ experience in transactional business, hardware and software industry in Asia Pacific and Australia.

Vipin Kalra joins BankBazaar.com from Visa where he held various senior level positions. In his previous role, Vipin was Senior Vice President of Merchant Sales and Solutions for Asia Pacific. Prior to this, Vipin was the Country Manager for Visa’s Australia business. He was instrumental in not only accelerating Visa’s revenue growth, but also making Australia a leading global marketplace for payment innovation. Under his leadership, Visa Australia successfully rolled out Visa’s contactless payment (Visa payWave) and mobile NFC payments. He also led the proliferation of credit, debit, and prepaid payment products with Visa’s clients and partners.

In his new role, Vipin will be responsible for growing and establishing BankBazaar’s presence in international markets starting with Malaysia and Singapore. Further, he will focus on forging strategic partnerships with financial institutions as well as product development for international markets.

Stay tuned for next week’s Movers and Shakers of the week with us.