Movers and Shakers Of The Week [April 27 – May 2]

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

This week, layoffs, delayed salaries, pay cuts continued to cripple the Indian startup ecosystem  — the B2B ecommerce unicorn startup Udaan recently reported to have laid off close to 3K of its contractual staff due to the dent caused across non-essential categories.  

SoftBank-backed robotic process automation (RPA) firm Automation Anywhere has also started to lay off many of its employees because of Covid-19 pandemic. 

Angel investor Vinod Java, alongside Bhargavi V, Karteek Pulapaka have started an early-stage venture capital firm Java Capital. The firm will be investing in fintech, healthtech, SaaS, mobile internet, consumer and deep tech. 

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

OYO Appoints Troy Alstead

Hospitality Unicorn OYO Hotels & Homes has appointed Troy Alstead as an independent member of the company’s board of directors. Alstead will be providing supervisory role and provide guidance to the founder and the management, on key business decisions. 

Troy previously served as COO at Starbucks Corporation and was responsible for leading the global operations of the business and family of brands around the world. Besides this, he is also the founder, president and CEO of Ocean5 and Table 47. He is on the board of Topgolf Group, Harley-Davidson Inc and Levi Strauss & Co. 

OYO currently operates in over 800 cities, including the US, Europe, UK, India, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Japan.

PayU India Appoints Anup Agarwal And Vikas Sekhri

Naspers-backed PayU India has appointed two senior-level executives for its credit and alternate lending business — PayU Credit India. The company has appointed Anup Agarwal as its business head, who will be leading the buy-now-pay-later business and PayU Credit India’s business operations, which owns and operates LazyPay. 

Previously, Agarwal was the head of partnerships and risk strategy at InCred Financial Services. 

Besides this, PayU has also appointed Vikas Sekhri as chief product officer, who will be heading the product strategy for PayU’s credit operations. Prior to joining the company, Sekhri was the founder and CEO of CashCare.  

PayU India provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses. Till date, it has served more than 450K merchants with over 100 payment methods to nearly 60% of the ecommerce merchants and airline businesses.

ShopX Appoints Nitin Nohria

Bengaluru-based retail network company ShopX appointed Nitin Nohria to the organisation’s advisory board. Nohria is the dean of the faculty at Harvard Business School and George F Baker Professor of Administration. He has authored over 100 journal articles, book chapters, cases, working papers and notes. 

Prior to this, he has served as an advisor, board member and consultant to several large and small companies in different parts of the world. 

ShopX is a B2B ecommerce platform that provides significant benefits to retailers across India. The company has enabled close to over 170K retailers across over 440 towns in 24 states, serving more than 8 Mn customers. 

RBS India Appoints Manessh Menda

RBS India elevated Maneesh Menda as head of HR. He will be leading the organisation’s talent strategy and capabilities, supporting the bank to achieve its goals. 

Prior-to-this, Maneesh served as a chartered accountant with over two decades in various global and regional roles. Before joining RBS in 2015, he was with Standard Chartered Bank.

Mamaearth Appoints Sambit Dash, Ramanpreet Sohi And Ashish Mishra

On a hiring spree, Gurugram-based Mamaearth has recently appointed three key members for its senior leadership team — Sambit Dash, Ramanpreet Sohi and Ashish Mishra. 

Prior to joining Mamaearth, Sambit Dash was the head of marketing at Taco Bell, Rananpreet Sohi was CFO of Epigamia and Ashish Mishra was head of international business development at VLCC. 

A 100% toxin-free and natural baby care, skin care and hair care brand, Mamaearth uses science and ayurveda to create personal care products. Currently, it has launched a range of 80+ natural products, serving close to 1.5 Mn customers across 500 Indian cities. Their products are available on Amazon, Nykaa, Flipkart and on its own platform. 

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