Indian origin CTO now at the helm of Dropbox and Snapdeal ropes in Google global executive. What else is new?
Another interesting week has gone by, with bigger startups seeming to continue the trend of aggressive hiring.
Without wasting much time, let’s look at the HR reshuffles that caught our attention this week.
Snapdeal ropes in former Google global executive
This week, e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal announced the appointment of ex-Google global communications executive Parul Batra as the vice president of corporate communications. With over 17 years of experience behind her, Parul in her new role will anchor the public relations mandate for the company.
She was a part of Google India’s founding team as well as NDTV Convergence, that set up NDTV.com.
Ex-auto journalist appointed GirnarSoft’s editorial head
GirnarSoft, the parent company to brands like CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, and ZigWheels.com announced appointing Kartikeya Singhee as the group editorial head.
In his 12-year-long career as a journalist, Kartikeya has served as associate editor at Autocar India, which also produced auto shows for Times Now and ET Now. He has also had other stints with CNBCTV18 and Next Gen Publishing Ltd.
Speaking on the appointment, Charu Kishnani, VP — Content and Digital Marketing, GirnarSoft, said,
“Portals under GirnarSoft have made strides over the years of their existence. To the Indian consumer, they are the most preferred destinations for automobile-related information. Kartikeya’s experience and insights into the auto world will help us raise the bar further across our content-driven products. ”
A press statement said that Kartikeya’s appointment is in line with GirnarSoft’s vision to ramp up its content for consumers.
Freecharge has a new director of strategy
Digital payments platform Freecharge announced the appointment of Karthik Rajeshwaran as its new director — strategy. In his new role, Karthik will oversee consumer-centric innovations to expand revenue across new business opportunities.
Prior to this, Karthik was leading Obi Worldphone’s global marketing and growth, while looking into handling brand communications for the brand in South-Asian Countries and launching smartphones.
Dropbox appoints a new CTO of Indian origin
Adding to the list of Indians rising to top executive positions in the Silicon Valley is Aditya Agarwal, who was appointed the new CTO of file sharing and syncing software Dropbox. He became a part of Dropbox when his previous startup, Cove (where he was the chief technology officer), got acquired by the Silicon Valley behemoth.
Aditya was also earlier an engineer at Facebook and rose to the position of director of product engineering at the social media website.
Just Buy Live gets two new advisory board members
B2B e-distributor Just Buy Live announced Sangeeta Talwar and Theron Carmine de Sousa as independent members of its advisory board.
In a career spanning 30 years, Sangeeta has served on the board of directors for brands like Tata Tea Ltd., Tata Coffee Ltd., Eight O’clock Coffee (USA), Oriental Hotels, and Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Pvt. Ltd. She has been said to be instrumental in the Tata Tea ‘Jaago Re’ campaign.
Theron, known as TC, is a consulting director at strategy, design, and advertising firm Ferry Wharf Communications.
According to the company, the new members will strategically counsel the company as it charts its next chapter of growth.
Curofy beefs up its marketing and business strategy team
Mobile-only platform for doctors, Delhi-based Curofy announced the appointment of Jo Peddhinti as a business and digital marketing strategist.
Focusing on pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology firms, Jo has an experience of seven years in business strategy, digital marketing strategy, tactical planning, cross-channel marketing, and market research.
Relatas hires three new advisors
Business relationship intelligence startup Relatas, part of YourStory’s 2014 Tech30, hired three advisors — Gaurav Rastogi, Rajani Ramanathan, Former COO, Salesforce, and Vasant Kumar, former senior director at Oracle India. The company helps enhance users’ daily interactions, both personal and business related.
This week saw an equal balance of big and early-stage startups hiring. Nonetheless, we still see a weekly trend of at least one e-commerce major rejigging its leadership positions. For example, in the past four weeks, Snapdeal has made a couple of changes to its marketing and external communications personnel.
Further, with e-commerce majors expecting Diwali sales to be rising, the season of personnel reshuffles is also expected to continue.
