Movers And Shakers Of The Week [18 September – 23 September]

This is one of the major shakers for the Indian startup and tech ecosystem. Deepak Gulati, who had joined online restaurant listings and food ordering startup Zomato in March this year, has stepped down from his position as president and chief operating officer at Zomato. Before joining Zomato, Gulati was the President, Chairman office­-technology group and senior advisor at Indonesia-based Sinarmas Group. Earlier he served as the CEO and executive president of Tata Docomo.

 Further, Rajesh Magow, co-founder and chief executive of India’s largest online travel agency MakeMyTrip Ltd, being back on the board of e-tailing major Flipkart after a span of two years, was one of the prime movers for this week. As cited in a leading daily, Magow’s new assignment will most likely be to help Flipkart go public within the next two to three years.

 Let’s have a look at other important movers and shakers of the week.

BabyChakra Strengthens Its Senior Leadership Team

BabyChakra, one of the leading social discovery and commerce platform for maternity and childcare has announced two key leadership appointments. The company has brought on board former FreeCharge executive Rachita Choudhary and founding member of Jabong and Hopscotch  Samarth Sawhney.

Rachita Choudhary has joined BabyChakra as Head of Engineering, in line with her knowledge of both product and engineering that will be integral in building a robust parenting community product and driving growth at BabyChakra.

Rachita is a leading woman in the tech space in India and has around ten years of extensive experience in building large-scale ecommerce and consumer tech products. Prior to joining BabyChakra, Rachita was serving as the Director of Engineering at FreeCharge where she led and managed different tech teams across growth, payments, customer success, and product. She has earlier worked with Morgan Stanley and AskMe. She holds a Masters in Computer Science & Engineering from IIIT-Hyderabad.

Another appointment is of Samarth Sawhney as the Head of Growth. In this role, he will be responsible for driving product and marketing for India’s biggest parenting and pregnancy social-commerce platform BabyChakra. In addition, he will play a significant role in the overall strategy and growth of the business by working closely with function heads and the CEO of BabyChakra.

Samarth was a founding member at Jabong and Hopscotch, where he held leadership roles and led marketing, growth, and revenue.

Prior to joining BabyChakra, Samarth was Vice President of Marketing at HAPP, an innovative online and mobile-based healthcare platform that connects patients and doctors, as part of Apollo Hospitals.

He has over nine years of extensive experience in the e-commerce and consumer internet space, his experience in the mother-and- baby industry will bring valuable insights for BabyChakra’s new products and services marketplace.

Little Black Book Strengthens Its Growth & Revenue Leadership Team

Little Black Book, the de-facto destination for all local recommendations and discoveries has announced the appointment of Anshul Khandelwal and Manik Malhotra as the Head of Marketing & Growth and the Chief Revenue Officer respectively.

Anshul will spearhead and lead the strategic growth at LBB across critical business areas including customer engagement and retention through product, driving growth through new touch points and overseeing transformational customer experiences.

An IIM Kozhikode alumnus, Anshul was previously working with Ronnie Screwvala (Founder of UpGrad) as Head of Marketing where he led brand strategy and positioning, brand activation and marketing-led innovations. He has also worked with BlueStone as VP of Marketing in the past.

Manik, on the other hand, will be responsible for driving key revenue strategies across all segments of LBB. He will be responsible for developing LBB’s go-to-market strategy, driving its revenue growth, managing client relationships, launching transaction-based revenue streams, and developing its talent for the next phase of expansion.

He is a consummate professional and comes with 14 years+ experience across electronic and outdoor media and a solid career track for successfully working with industry leaders and start-up ventures. He was last appointed as VP Sales & Marketing with NDTV Lifestyle Ltd.

Vidooly Appoints Preeti Jadhav As VP of Revenue

Vidooly Media Tech, one of India’s leading video intelligence platform, has appointed Preeti Jadhav as Vice President of Revenue. Jadhav a senior media executive with 14 years of experience,  in her new role will lead strategic growth at Vidooly by identifying key revenue channels and opportunities.

She will also be responsible for business development and partnerships at Vidooly. Along with this Vidooly has also expanded its presence with its second office in India at Mumbai’s business hub, Bandra Kurla Complex.

In her new role, Preeti will work towards expansion of Vidooly into international markets and further solidify its presence as industry leaders in the digital video space globally.

In her previous role, Jadhav worked at Hotstar in roles of agency lead and that of leading the sales business responsible for driving revenue for larger part of west region. Over her 14 years of experience, she has had stints at media conglomerates like Star Network, Network 18 and Percept Media across various functions such as business development, revenue, advertising, and strategic initiatives.

 Ola Appoints Flipkart Exec As Senior VP

Ola has appointed former Flipkart executive Saikiran Krishnamurthy as its senior vice-president. Krishnamurthy, who had joined Flipkart as its COO in 2015, was later appointed as the head of the company’s supply chain vertical, which included eKart and after-sales platform Jeeves.

In January, he quit the company days after Tiger Global’s Kalyan Krishnamurthy took over as its CEO. Subsequently in March, Krishnamurthy had joined his former employer Mckinsey in a part-time advisory role.

Krishnamurthy will head Ola’s newly-created marketplace and will spearhead growth initiatives.

Stay tuned for the movers and shakers of the next week!