Movers & Shakers Of The Week [June 20 – June 25]

Just a day after SoftBank gave a clean chit to its president Nikesh Arora, today, in a tweet, the former Google executive stated that he will step down. According to a new release issued by Softbank today, Arora, representative director, President and Chief Operating Officer of SBG, will assume an advisory role, effective July 1. Masayoshi said that he will continue to be the be CEO for another five to ten years.

Kalaari Capital Expands Senior Leadership Team

Kalaari Capital announced three key additions to the leadership team to further strengthen their lead in early stage technology investments in India. The trio is expected to spearhead the multi vertical growth of Kalaari’s portfolio companies.

Prashanth Aluru, ex Partner, Bain &amp Company, joined as Partner. Prashanth comes with a broad range of strategy consulting and operational experience with nearly 18 years of experience in the global technology industry across India, US and UK/Europe. As leader in Bain’s APAC Technology, Media and Telecom and Digital practice areas over the last 9 years, Prashanth was instrumental in expanding their consulting business with IT services players by crafting global growth strategies – including new opportunities in the Digital space.

Pooja Gupta, ex- Head of HR, Myntra, came on board as Head – Portfolio HR. Pooja has over 15 years of experience with companies like Myntra and SAP AG playing a variety of local and international roles in HR. She has driven the HR charter at scale in large multi-national environments as well as at dynamic, hyper growth start-ups. As Head of HR at Myntra Designs Pooja helped the company scale to become a leader in online fashion and establish a distinctive Employer Brand and culture.

Kalaari’s unique seed program, Kstart, added Muthiah Venkateswaran as Partner. Muthiah brings a broad set of experiences in management consulting & technology across India and US. His prior experiences include McKinsey USA where he started his career before moving to India and nearly a decade long stint with Texas Instruments in multiple business transformation and technology development roles.

Flipkart brings Back Tiger Global’s Kalyan Krishnamurthy

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, former chief financial officer, is making a comeback to Flipkart to take charge of a key function in commerce business. He is a managing director at Tiger Global and will oversee category management and report directly to Binny Bansal. A former eBay executive with extensive experiences in Asian markets, Krishnamurthy joined Tiger Global as director of finance for portfolio companies in 2011. He joined Flipkart as an interim CFO in early 2013, when the then incumbent Karandeep Singh quit the company citing personal reasons.

Amazon India Ropes In Arun Sirdeshmukh

Amazon India appointed Fashionara co-founder Arun Sirdeshmukh as the head of its fashion portfolio. Sirdeshmukh joined the company weeks after his online retailing venture folded up after struggling amid dwindling business and cash crunch. Prior to striking out on his own as an entrepreneur with Fashionara, Sirdeshmukh was the CEO of Reliance Trends, the fashion and lifestyle business of Reliance Retail.

PayPal appoints Anupam Pahuja

Anupam Pahuja has been elevated to the post of Managing Director for PayPal’s India operations. Pahuja, who was healing technology for PayPal, has been with the company for over six years, the company said in a statement. In his new role, Pahuja  will be responsible for all aspects of PayPal’s India business and further strengthening the company’s operations in India.

ePsyClinic Gets New CTO

ePsyClinic, the online platform which provides emotional and mental healthcare to clients, appointed Rohit Shrivastava on board as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Rohit has experience of more than 15 years working in various sectors such as Health Care, Telecom, Banking, Security and eLearning. He will be responsible to boost the technological infrastructure and service optimization of the company. He will also strengthen company’s interactive modern technologies that can help amplify ePsyclinic’s customer-centric approach. Rohit has pursued bachelor’s degree in Computer applications from Jiwaji University in Gwalior followed by an MBA in General Management from the University of Virginia. He has successfully been involved in product evolution of the security industry like TriCipher used by Bank of America, a healthcare solution for Managed MediCare for US based company and PAAS/SAAS productsin the Publishing & e-learning industry.

CheckGaadi Appoints Sudhakar KSS as its COO

CheckGaadi.com, an online car inspection services startup, announced the appointment of Sudhakar KSS as its Chief Operating Officer. Sudhakar earlier co-founded Attune Technologies along with Arvind Kumar.

Amura Marketing Technologies Ropes In Ram Gopalan

Ram Gopalan, who has had a distinguished corporate career where he was heading the Indian operations of SapientNitro, has joined as a member of Board of Advisors for strategy of business expansion for Amura Marketing Technologies, a leading digital marketing agency. Ram will be contributing towards building business strategies to explore markets and expand into multiple sectors and verticals at Amura. Ram comes with a vision of building Amura as a global brand and sell. Ram brings decades of first hand senior executive experience of working across the gamut of organizations like Rediffusion Y&R, Rediff.com, Leo Burnett, etc.

VEQTA Announces Financial Sector Leader Gaurav Gill

VEQTA, a digital broadcast network (OTT) dedicated to sports, announced that financial sector leader Gaurav Gill will now be a part of the company as a co-founder and director. Gaurav will be also a part of the board of directors and play a key role in taking decisions towards scaling operations, growth of the company, setting key targets and objectives along with Vikram Tanwar and Varun Mathur, the other co-founders of VEQTA. He is an investment management professional with over 17 years of extensive investment experience encompassing private equity investments and real estate transactions globally. His experience includes managing an investment company, working for some of the largest global sovereign wealth funds, as well as working in fixed-income securitization and structured finance in New York.

IvyCap Ventures Brings On Board Senior Professional From India

Ivycap Ventures has confirmed the appointment of Lipika Rajpal, making an addition to their senior level investment team. Lipika has joined as a Senior Investment Professional and will be providing strategic muscle to potential startups. She has nine years of experience in private equity investing, investment banking and has worked with CX Partners, an India focussed Private Equity fund, the Royal Bank of Scotland and SBI Capital Markets. In her last role, she was a part of the Investment Team of the CX Intermediate Capital Fund. Prior to CX Partners, Lipika worked with SBI Capital Markets where she focused on arranging project finance of over $6 Bn for large corporations in the oil and gas and chemicals sector.

Manish Agrawal Joins TheAgrihub

Manish Agrawal has joined TheAgrihub team as their Chief Product Officer. He brings onboard more than a decade of experience leading business strategy and strategic growth within a variety of industries. As the CPO, Agrawal will drive the company’s global product strategy, including product management and business development. Manish most recently served as the co-founder & CEO of Techment Technology, a mobile application, custom software and technology solutions company where he helped guide the company’s rapid growth. Prior to this, Manish has also been the co-founder & CEO of Picsquare.com an online digital photo printing and personalized gifts portal which was acquired by e-commerce portal Infibeam.com.