Furniture retailer Pepperfry, on Tuesday announced the appointment of OnMobile chief Sanjay Baweja and Stonesoup.in co-founder Malini Parmar as independent directors on its board.
With the recent addition, Pepperfry’s board now comprises three executive directors and four non-executive directors.
Baweja comes with over 3 decades of experience across sectors such as technology, telecommunications and real estate. Prior to joining OnMobile, he worked with the Bhartiya Group as group president.
In the past, he has held leadership positions at Xerox, Emaar MGF, Bharti Airtel, Suzlon, Flipkart, and Tata Communications. He is also a fellow member of The Institute of Chartered Accounts of India, and an associate of The Institute of Cost Accountants of India.
On the other hand, Parmar joins Pepperfry with more than 17 years of experience in IT sector, having worked with the likes of HCL Infosystems, Infosys and Wipro.
Stonesoup, which operates an eponymous social enterprise, aims to make sustainable living easy while creating employment for women. In the past, Parmar has been associated with campaign groups including SWMRT, 2Bin1Bag, Swachagraha, and Period Love – Bleed Green.
"Their (Malini and Sanjay) insights into strategy, environmentally sustainable growth and risk management will help us create more value for our customers, business partners, shareholders and communities for many years to come," said Ambareesh Murty, co-founder and chief executive officer of Pepperfry.
Founded by Ashish Shah and Murty, Pepperfry, operated by Trendsutra Platform Services Pvt. Ltd, sells furniture and home goods both online and offline. The platform has an omnichannel footprint that covers over 100 cities with over 195 studios.
Since its inception in 2012, the company has raised $240 million. It counts Norwest Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs, Bertelsmann India Investments, and State Street Global Advisors as its backers.
The furniture marketplace narrowed its net losses by over one-third in the financial year 2020-21 (FY21) to Rs 105.65 crore, from Rs 167.29 crore in FY20. However, the startup witnessed a 13% decline in revenue from operations on a consolidated basis to Rs 201.50 crore in FY21, against Rs 231.58 for FY20. It is yet to disclose its annual financials for FY22.