IPO-bound Ola has appointed new heads for its financial services and used car-platform business, as it continues to restructure its organisation before the public listing next year.
Ola on Tuesday announced the appointment of PV Harinarayan, who joins as the vice president of lending at Ola Financial Services. Harinarayan has previously worked with organisations including Bajaj Finserv, Barclays and ICICI Bank, while also scaling digital lending non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), the company said in a statement.
This comes on the back of Ola's general counsel Sandeep Chowdhury resigning after a nine-month stint with the company, two people aware of the discussion confirmed to Mint.
The company also announced appointments to electric vehicle (EV) business Ola Electric, which was also founded by Ola Cabs co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal.
The senior hires include V Ramesh who will be joining the EV venture as vice president and head of operations at the Ola Electric’s manufacturing hub, Ola Futurefactory. As a part of the new role, Ramesh will be responsible for efficient operations and instilling best practices including safety, quality and productivity at Ola’s Futurefactory.
The company has also roped in Priteesh Mahajan as head of Ola Electric’s two-wheeler product planning and program management. Mahajan will be responsible for overseeing the engineering program management for the company’s two-wheeler programme which includes both the current line-up and future products.
Ola Group consists of the ride-hailing business Ola Cabs, its recently launched used-car buying and selling platform, Ola Cars, its payments, insurance and lending business under Ola Financial Services and its food and food delivery business Ola Foods, all of which are owned by ANI Technologies.
Aggarwal is also an investor in the electric vehicle manufacturing company, Ola Electric, along with SoftBank and others.
“We are ushering in the era of New Mobility and continue to attract the best talent from around the world to build it out at scale. These additions to our leadership team add significant experience and diverse skills to Ola in key areas including lending, production and quality as well as engineering management and I look forward to collaborating with them to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable mobility,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, chief executive officer (CEO), Ola.
Mint reported on October 20 that Ola’s chief financial officer Swayam Saurabh and chief operating officer Gaurav Porwal have resigned from the firm.
Ola’s group chief financial officer G.R. Arun Kumar, who had joined the company earlier this year, is now expected to oversee the finance function across all group companies, with all key finance leaders at Ola now reporting directly to him.
In October, the company had expanded roles of several key leaders, as a part of the new restructuring exercise.
Anshul Khandelwal, who was appointed as Ola’s chief marketing officer in March, was expected to take on the additional responsibility of driving consumer revenue for Ola Cabs.
Vinay Bhopatkar, who was responsible for the deliveries business of Ola, which includes food tech and new ambitions such as groceries and hyperlocal, will assume additional responsibility for the driver and supply ecosystem of the mobility business, Ola Cabs.
The restructuring comes at a time Ola aims to file its draft prospectus to raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion through its public listing on the domestic exchanges next year, Mint reported earlier.
The company is targeting a valuation of almost $18 billion through the domestic listing.
