Indian ride hailing company Ola on Thursday appointed two chief financial officers (CFOs). GR Arun Kumar has come in as the group CFO for Ola and CFO for its electric vehicle Ola Electric. Swayam Saurabh has joined in as CFO for Ola’s mobility, financial services and foods businesses.
Kumar and Saurabh both have over two decades of experience in various roles. Kumar previously worked with companies such as Vedanta Resources, GE and Hindustan Unilever while Saurabh earlier worked with companies including Hindustan Zinc, Philips, Asian Paints and Larsen & Toubro.
"Arun (Kumar) and Swayam (Saurabh) bring deep financial expertise across large and complex global organisations and multiple industries including minerals, construction and FMCG amongst others," said Bhavish Aggarwal, chairman and group CEO, Ola.
These appointments come amidst several other hires by the company as it looks to expand its business verticals globally.
Last month, Ola roped in industry veteran and former Cognizant executive Rakesh Bhardwaj as its chief information officer.
The ride hailing company, backed by Softbank, also recently hired N Balachandar as Ola Electric CHRO, Wayne Burgess as Ola Electric’s Head of Design, and YS Kim as Ola Electric’s global head of sales and distribution, it added.
Meanwhile, Ola has also been seeing top level departures in the past months.
In March, VCCircle reported that Brijraj Vaghani, who was elevated to technology chief in November 2019, quit to explore an entrepreneurial venture outside mobility. In the same month, Pranay Jivrajka, founding partner of ride-hailing platform Ola and CEO of Ola Foods, stepped down from the company. Early last year, two seniors quit: head of products at Ola Mobility, Naroo Krishnan, and vice-president for product engineering at Ola, Sanjay Kharb.
According to reports, Ola Electric cofounder Ankit Jain, who was reportedly one of the closest confidants of CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, left the company in August 2020.
