Ola's CFO And COO Quit As Firm Rejigs Structure Ahead Of IPO
Ola's Chief Financial Officer Swayam Saurabh and Chief Operating Officer Gaurav Porwal are stepping down.
Ola Group's senior executives are stepping down as the company expands beyond the ride-hailing business and rejigs its reporting structure ahead of its initial public offering.
Chief Financial Officer Swayam Saurabh, who took charge in April this year, and Chief Operating Officer Gaurav Porwal, who had joined in 2019, are leaving to pursue other interests, said an email written by group Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Aggarwal to employees. BloombergQuint has reviewed a copy.
Saurabh will be moving on by mid-December, the mail said, without offering details on when Porwal will be leaving.
While Ola has been plagued by attrition at the top, Aggarwal said in the mail that the company's making "key upgrades" within the organisation as it prepares for its next phase of growth.
Ola is creating positions of sub-heads within the different expanding segments as it moves beyond the ride-hailing business to Ola Cars and vehicle commerce, and also builds a delivery and financial services business, people privy to the development told BloombergQuint on the condition of anonymity.
Ola has yet to respond to BloombergQuint's emailed queries.
Aggarwal said in the mail all the key finance leaders at Ola will report directly to Arun Kumar GR, the group CFO. Earlier this year, the company appointed Arun Sirdeshmukh, a former Amazon India and Reliance Trends executive, as chief executive officer at Ola Cars.
The exits, however, come when the company, according to a Bloomberg report in August, looks to raise up to $1 billion via its initial public offering at a valuation of around $8 billion.
Saurabh and Porwal are the latest in the series of exits at the company. Pranay Jivrajka, the firm's founding partner, quit earlier this year; and so did Nitin Gupta, chief executive officer at Ola Financial Services.
Sanjay Bhan, chief business officer at Ola Electric Mobility; Ankit Jain who moved to Ola Electric as business head; and Anand Shah, co-founder of the electric vehicle division have all left the company in the last two years.