Movers And Shakers Of The Week [30 April-5 May 2018]

SUMMARY

Important Movers And Shakers Of The Indian Startup Ecosystem [30 April-5 May 2018]

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

Ex-Googler Neeraj Arora May Replace The Outgoing WhatsApp CEO

WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum has decided to move on from the company and it is expected that Neeraj Arora will replace Koum in his role.

Neeraj has 18 years of experience in the space and has worked with companies like Times Internet and Google.

Koum had supposedly resigned “after clashing with its parent, Facebook, over the popular messaging service’s strategy and Facebook’s attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption”.

Varun Laul Joins Zodius As Managing Director

Varun Laul has joined the technology-focused fund Zodius Capital Advisors as the Managing Director.

Varun comes with an experience of 17 years in private equity, investment banking, management consulting and consumer marketing in high growth markets of Asia.

Prior to this, he was the director at US fund Providence Equity Partners LLC and worked there for 10 years. He has also worked as an associate at investment bank DSP Merrill Lynch and at A.T. Kearney as a management consultant.

In his new role, Varun’s key responsibility will be to identify and invest in fast-growing companies and continue building the Zodius franchise.

Cuemath Onboards Govind Rajan As COO

Former Freecharge CEO Govind Rajan has joined Cuemath as Chief Operating Officer.

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With two decades of experience in leading teams and P&Ls, across CPG, Telecom, Consumer internet and financial services. Prior to Freecharge, Govind was also the CEO of Airtel Money and the chief marketing officer, B2C, at Airtel. He has also worked with Unilever for 15 years.

In his new role at Cuemath, Govind’s primary responsibilities will be around strategy while also taking care of marketing, product, technology as well as expansion.

KKR Real Estate Investment Levels Up Ashish Khandelia

Soon after reports surfaced that Ashish Khandelia, realty executive at KKR, had put in his papers, the private equity firm has now reportedly promoted India realty finance co-head Yesh Nadkarni to replace Ashish.

At the time of Ashish’s resignation, reports also surfaced that Saurabh Gupta – principal, Real Estate, KKR India had also resigned. It was speculated that Ashish had left to set up his own business.

Nadkarni has been with KKR India Asset Finance since 2015 and had earlier worked with JPMorgan’s Global Special Opportunities Group for two years and also managed India real estate of the same group for five years till 2013. He also has had stints with ICICI Prudential AMC and Jones Lang LaSalle.

Ashish had worked with Morgan Stanley for 7 years, and before that worked with Kotak Mahindra Capital and Ernst & Young.

Saurabh Gupta has earlier worked with Tata Strategic Management Group and SUN-AREA Property Partners.

GroupM Onboards Sameer Singh As South Asia CEO

Sameer Singh will join GroupM as CEO of its South Asia division.

Prior to this, Sameer was director-sales at Google India, responsible for the agency business. Earlier, he was based at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California where he worked on measurement, brand consulting, insights and product solutions. In his career of 25 years, he has also worked GSK, Procter & Gamble etc.

In his new role, Sameer will join in July and will be based out of Gurugram. He will report to CVL Srinivas, country manager for WPP India and Mark Patterson, chief executive, GroupM Asia Pacific.

Stay tuned for the next edition of Movers And Shakers Of The Week!