Movers And Shakers of The Week [Jan 27-1 Feb]

We bring to you the latest edition of movers and shakers of the week in the Indian startup ecosystem.

International Business Machines Corp (IBM) has promoted Arvind Krishna as the new CEO of the company. Krishna will fit in the shoes of Ginni Rometty who will take an exit from IBM after working for eight years.

Prior to leading the company, Krishna was the senior vice president of Cloud and Cognitive Software at IBM. Moreover, Krishna has been working at IBM for more than 29 years.”Arvind is the right CEO for the next era at IBM,” Rometty said in a statement.

Krishna is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur where he pursued a bachelors degree in electrical engineering. The newly appointed CEO also holds a PhD from the University of Illinois in electrical engineering.

Here’s a look at the other important movers and shakers of the week

Sanjiv Saddy Joins Ola

Bengaluru-based Cab aggregator Ola has appointed Sanjiv Saddy as senior vice president of corporate affairs. At his new position, Saddy will be responsible for building deep relationships with key authorities, government agencies and other related stakeholders and in closely engaging and working with them as a business.

Prior to joining Ola, Saddy was the senior vice president at Flipkart. Previously, he has also worked with Tata Communications and EmaarMGF Land Limited.

Launched in 2010, Ola has emerged as the leading cab aggregator in India, even as it competes fiercely with Uber.

Jay Parikh Signs Out of Facebook

Jay Parikh, who was Facebook’s vice president of engineering, has resigned from the company.

In a Facebook post, Parikh said that it’s time for him to step out of Facebook to explore what’s next. Parikh added that he does not have any immediate plans thereafter.

At his stint at Facebook, Parikh was instrumental in creating the data centre infrastructure on which the company builds its numerous apps and services. Parikh had joined Facebook in 2009.

Sachin Bansal Resigns As Director Of Ujjivan Small Finance Bank

Flipkart’s cofounder who has been bullish on fintech startups have stepped down as an independent director of Ujjivan Small Finance Bank.

On his resignation, Bansal reportedly said that the decision was in the interest of propriety and corporate governance as an entity owned and controlled by him has made an application to the Reserve Bank of India for a universal banking license.

Rishi Kapoor Joins Sapphire Human Solutions

Rishi Kapoor, former senior director of Conferences and Special Initiatives at Times Strategic Solutions Ltd, has joined Sapphire Human Solutions as an Associate Partner. Rishi with his experience will help Sapphire Human Solutions start and head Sapphire Connect which is a new business initiative of the company.

Rishi Kapoor has over 15 years of experience in building and managing sustainable verticals in the media industry. He was part of the initial core team of ET Edge. Kapoor has also been an integral part of the senior team with companies like Planman Consulting, HT Media, IDG Media and Monster India.

Sapphire Human Solutions is a platform which helps organisations to help find and hire senior executive roles.

Lendingkart Appoints Two Senior Directors

Bengaluru-based fintech startup Lendingkart has appointed Ratul Paul as senior director – credit data science and Leena Shetye as senior director – capital markets.

Paul brings over 12 years of experience in Lendingkart and joins from Equifax. At his new position, Paul will be responsible for setting up pipes and processes to capture the credit variables in database, explore new credit models and experiment with how data is used to drive varied tasks.

Prior to Equifax, he has also worked as a senior analytics manager at CTOS in Malaysia where he built and consulted 20+ machine learning algorithms with proven consistency.

Leena Shetye comes with 25+ years of experience in treasury, corporate loan, project funding, working capital management and corporate finance.

In her new role, Shetye will be committed to managing and leading the investor relations, identifying newer funding models and bettering Lendingkart’s next phase of growth and beyond.

Lendingkart Group is a fintech company which provides short term working capital loans to MSME borrowers under Lendingkart Finance Limited – a non-deposit taking NBFC arm of Lendingkart Group.

CleverTap Appoints Prashant Parashar

Mumbai-based CleverTap has appointed Prashant Parashar as the chief human resources officer (CHRO) of the company.

In his new role, Parashar will report to CEO Sunil Thomas. He will lead all aspects of human resources and be responsible for the strategic direction of people management, including talent acquisition, training and development, performance management, organisational effectiveness, diversity and inclusion, and succession planning.

Founded in 2013, by Anand Jain, Sunil Thomas and Suresh Kondamudi, CleverTap is a customised platform which analyses user behaviour and groups them into multiple groups on the basis of what they have done or not done, send them push notifications, emails, SMSes, etc.

Stay tuned for the next edition of Movers and Shakers of the week!