Mobility company Ola's
chief financial officer Swayam Saurabh and chief operating officer Gaurav
Porwal are leaving the company.
These
developments come at a time when the SoftBank-backed company’s core
ride-hailing unit is planning to go public and for which it raised $500 million
from Warburg Pincus and Temasek in July this year.
These investment firms had
partnered with the company founder Bhavish Aggarwal for this round.
In an internal
email sent to the employees recently, Bhavish Aggarwal has said that over the
last year Ola has re-architected its mobility business to be much more robust
and structurally efficient, enabling strong growth and a rapid return to
pre-Covid levels.
“Our vehicle commerce
business, Ola Cars, has scaled up rapidly to become a large operation, and our
Delivery and Financial Services businesses are at key inflection points,” said
Aggarwal, in the letter and which has been seen by Business Standard.
“As we look forward to
Ola's next phase of growth, we are making some key updates to our organisation
that will enable us to capture the opportunities that lie ahead.”
He said Vinay A Bhopatkar,
who is building our Deliveries business, will take on the additional
responsibilities for the driver and supply ecosystem of the company’s mobility
platform due to the strong synergies between these businesses.
“It will enable us to
further improve driver experience and utilisation,” said Aggarwal.
Anshul Khandelwal, who
leads marketing will take on the additional responsibility to drive revenue as
well.
“Gaurav (Porwal), who has
run the mobility business for the last year and built a strong foundation
during challenging times, will be leaving Ola to pursue other interests,” said
Aggarwal.
“It has been a real
pleasure working alongside. Please join me in thanking him for his incredible
efforts and in wishing him the very best for everything that lies ahead.”
Aggarwal said Arun Kumar G
R, Ola’s Group CFO has helped the firm build an extremely strong finance
function in a very short time.
He said the firm’s finance
team is much stronger with incredible talent and is much more business-oriented
than ever before.
“Arun (Kumar) will continue
to run the finance function across the group and all the key finance leaders at
Ola will now report directly to him.
"Swayam Saurabh will
be moving on to pursue other opportunities in mid-December.
"I wish him the very
best for his next endeavour,” said Aggarwal.
Aggarwal also said Arun
Sirdeshmukh will continue to play the role of CEO, Ola Cars, the firm’s vehicle
commerce business.
“Please join me in
congratulating them on their new roles and let’s continue to build the future
of mobility together,” he said.
The executives are leaving
when Ola has new growth plans, including setting up a Rs 2,400-crore electric
vehicle facility expected to become the world’s largest two-wheeler factory.
Ola’s ride-hailing business
is recovering after the coronavirus pandemic’s hurt and demand for its food
business and financial services improves.
Swayam Saurabh who joined
Ola in June this year brought over two decades of varied experience in a
cross-section of roles.
This includes internal
audit, risk management, business and operational process improvements and
financial reporting.
He had worked at companies
including Hindustan Zinc, Philips, Asian Paints and Larsen & Toubro.
He had joined the Ola
leadership team as CFO of the high-growth mobility business, as well as the
fast-growing financial services and foods businesses.
His focus was on building
strong growth with a robust bottom line.
At the time of joining,
Saurabh had said Ola is uniquely positioned to make a significant impact in an
under-penetrated consumer internet space.
“I find it super exciting
to have the opportunity to be part of the team that will help fuel its next
phase of profitable growth,” Saurabh had said in June this year.
Another executive Gaurav
Porwal, the chief operating officer at Ola, was a former scientist at Procter
& Gamble India and co-founder of Sparsh Nephrocare.
He was a few years senior
to Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal in IIT Bombay and joined the company in 2019.
Early this year, Porwal had
taken up the role of Pranay Jivrajka, a founding partner of Ola, in the
interim. Jivrajka, had quit the ride-hailing company to launch his own startup,
according to the sources.
Jivrajka, who is also an
alumnus of IIT-Bombay, was one of the early employees of the firm and was AVP
for operations till 2013. He was later made chief operating officer in 2015, a
founding partner in 2017 and CEO of Ola Foods the same year.
Under Jivrajka’s leadership
as chief executive officer (CEO) of Ola Foods, the firm’s new business grew in
the coronavirus pandemic.
Another Ola executive
Puneet Bhirani quit the company in April this year.
In September this year, he
was appointed by Byju’s, the world’s most valuable edtech company as senior
vice president-operations.
Before joining Byju’s,
Bhirani was the chief executive officer of Ola Fleet and group chief operating
officer at Ola across mobility, foods, and Ola electric.
The executives quitting Ola
also comes at a time when the company has witnessed high-profile exits in the
recent past.
Ankit Jain, the co-founder
of Ola Electric and one of the closest confidants of Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal,
stepped away from his role in the company last year.
Anand Shah, another
co-founder of Ola Electric, had also left the firm.
Ola’s Australian managing director Simon Smith, who had joined the firm in 2018, left the firm in December 2020.
Two top executives, Arun
Srinivas and Sanjiv Saddy, resigned from the company last year.
These exits followed that
of Nitin Gupta, CEO of Ola Financial Services, who also resigned last year.
Last year Ola’s chief
business officer, Sanjay Bhan left the firm after spending merely 10 months in
the company.