Movers and Shakers Of The Week [19 – 24 Aug]

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

Paytm has announced that Madhur Deora, currently CFO of Paytm, has been promoted as President of the company. Madhur has over two decades of professional experience. Prior to joining Paytm in October 2016, he served as Managing Director in Citigroup’s investment banking business in a career that spanned New York, London, and Mumbai.

In another development, SoftBank Group is now gearing up to seek the support of its employees and founder to raise capital for its second vision fund. A Wall Street Journal report said that the company plans to lend up to $20 Bn to its employees to buy a stake in Vision Fund 2. Of this, Masayoshi Son may contribute up to $15 Bn.

Also, here’s good news for Facebook India employees as well. After a year of trying to recover from the data breaches and fake news epidemic, the company’s content moderation team came to light with reports of “underpaid, stressful and sometimes traumatic” workload. The latest report by Reuters has said that one of Facebook’s contractor, Genpact has raised minimum wages for the content moderation teams it runs for Facebook in India. The report added that Facebook has unveiled several initiatives in the past six months to support wellbeing in content moderation teams.

Let’s have a look at the other important movers and shakers in the Indian startup ecosystem.

RailYatri Appoints Chief Business Officer 

RailYatri, a multi-mode intercity transportation network, announced the appointment of Vivek Madhukar, as its Chief Business Officer for their new fleet of intercity bus service called ‘IntrCity SmartBus’. In his new role, Madhukar will be responsible for accelerating the growth and spearheading the business operations for RailYatri’s intercity bus vertical.

Madhukar comes with over 22 years of experience in developing and building startup businesses in the digital economy. He specializes in scaling revenue in new market segments and building high performing sales organizations. Before his appointment at RailYatri, Vivek founded ProsperX.com, a marketplace for Financial Products prior to which he served as the Chief Operating Officer for the classified division (TBS) of The Times Group.

RailYatri has successfully launched the IntrCity SmartBus service on some popular routes starting from Delhi to Lucknow, Kanpur, Shimla, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Manali and expanded further into Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Coimbatore. RailYatri as a platform is focused on making intercity travel hassle-free through their multi-modal offering.

SmartE Appoints Its CMD

SmartE has announced the appointment of ex-Pratt & Whitney (P&W) India head, Palash Roy Chowdhury. Palash who until recently was a non-executive cofounder of SmartE will join the organization full-time as its Chairman and Managing Director. Palash spent the previous 18 years working with United Technologies Corporation (UTC) and its aircraft engine unit, Pratt & Whitney, both in India and USA. He had announced his departure last month to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities.

During his 18-year tenure at UTC, Palash held multiple leadership roles both in the US as well as in India, spanning supply chain, program management, operations and general management. As a long-term aviation industry veteran, Palash brings excellent leadership skills that will play a crucial role in ensuring rapid and sustainable growth for SmartE

Aviva India Appoints Its Chief Distribution Officer

Aviva Life Insurance has announced the appointment of Ali Onder Lulu to the position of Chief Distribution Officer for the brand’s India business. In his role, Lulu will oversee the company’s multiple customer touchpoints through its varied distribution challenges both for individual and corporate customers. He will lead the company’s strategic organic growth plans.

Ali is an industry veteran with an experience of over 22 years. He also played an instrumental role in establishing AvivaSA Life and Pension company in 2007.

Airtel Appoints Rajesh Tapadia As CEO of Nxtra Data

Bharti Airtel has appointed Rajesh Tapadia as Chief Executive Officer of its data centre and cloud business – Nxtra Data. Nxtra Data, a subsidiary of Airtel, offers data centre services, managed services and cloud services to top India and global enterprises, start-ups, SMEs and governments.

Rajesh brings with him a rich experience of over 24 years with organisations like Netmagic Solutions, Trimax, Global Cloud Xchange, Genpact and Reliance Infocomm. In his most recent role in Netmagic Solutions as Chief Service Officer and Executive Director on the Board, Rajesh managed data centre operations across multiple cities, running mission-critical infrastructure for global customers.

He has driven key initiatives on cybersecurity, multi-cloud and global managed services and also led the setting up of many prominent data centres in the country.

Tata Sons Appoints CEO For Tata Digital

Tata Sons has announced the appointment of Pratik Pal as the CEO of Tata Digital. Pal will head the new entity which has been formed to incubate new digital businesses. Pratik has been with Tata Consultancy Services for over 27 years and has held several key leadership positions across multiple business units and industry verticals.

In his most recent role, Pratik was the global head of retail, travel, transportation, hospitality and consumer packaged goods industry unit, and responsible for the growth of TCS’ second largest industry segment.

Pal is a graduate of Electronics and Communication from Jadavpur University and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.

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