One97 Communications Ltd, which runs mobile wallet and e-commerce platform Paytm, has appointed former Alibaba Group Holding executive Bhushan Patil as its president.
Patil, who headed Alibaba Group’s wholesale business, will be responsible for building Paytm’s cross-border commerce business, the company said in a statement.
At Alibaba, Bhushan was instrumental in developing Alibaba.com's B2B business plans for India. An alumnus of IIT Bombay, he has also worked at Zapak Digital Entertainment, Yahoo and Talisma Corp.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO and founder of Paytm, said Patil will help the company as it strives to expand its operations outside India.
Paytm, which raised funding from Alibaba Group and Ant Financial in September, has made a string of senior-level hires lately.
In February this year, it named Shinjini Kumar, a former Reserve Bank of India executive and director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the CEO of its yet-to-launch payments bank. The same month, it appointed Barclays executive Krishna Hegde to head the consumer investment products division of the payments bank. In December 2015, Paytm named former Amazon executive Vikas Purohit as vice president of its payments bank.
Besides Alibaba and Ant Financial, Paytm counts SAIF Partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank as its investors. Ant Financial is a privately owned group firm controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma.