Building Bharat’s commerce backbone: The team behind Shiprocket’s rise

Every morning after a dispatch, the same email would arrive: “Where is my order?” For small sellers trying to scale on India's early ecommerce platforms, it became a familiar and frustrating pattern. Not because the products weren't good. Not because the prices were wrong. But because once a package left the warehouse, it effectively vanished into a logistics black hole.

For Saahil Goel, Gautam Kapoor, and Akshay Ghulati, this wasn't just a gap. It was an opportunity.

What followed was not an overnight breakthrough but a steady build. Starting with a shipping aggregation solution, the trio began solving one layer of the problem at a time.

Over the years, that effort evolved into Shiprocket, a platform that is now powering everything—from checkout and fulfilment to cross-border commerce and post-purchase experiences for businesses across Bharat.

Goel, Kapoor, and Ghulati didn't just divide roles. They shaped the DNA of Shiprocket through the distinct lenses each of them brought in.

For Goel, MD and CEO, the starting point was always the seller. Having worked closely with small and mid-sized businesses in his earlier ventures, he had a front-row view of how fragmented logistics, opaque pricing, and poor post-order experiences were holding merchants back. That translated into a strong merchant-first philosophy at Shiprocket, one that prioritises simplicity, transparency, and control. Seamless courier

integrations, frictionless onboarding, self-serve tools: Goel's conviction was that sellers shouldn't need deep operational expertise to scale. Just the right infrastructure.

Gautam Kapoor, Chief Operating Officer, brought an operator's rigour to the table. His early stint at Jabong gave him a ground-level education in what breaks when ecommerce scales fast, and how even small inefficiencies in fulfilment or delivery cascade into customer dissatisfaction. At Shiprocket, Kapoor channelled those learnings into building a system where reliability is non-negotiable. Strengthening partner networks, ensuring consistency in service levels, holding quality as volumes grow: his focus has been making sure that trust, once built with sellers and consumers, doesn't fracture under pressure.

Akshay Ghulati's lens has always been global. Currently serving as CEO of International Shipping, Ghulati brings experience from Amazon, A.T. Kearney, and The Parthenon Group, a background that gave him an early read on how mature ecommerce ecosystems scale across borders.

Ghulati recognised that Indian sellers would eventually look beyond domestic markets, but the barriers to cross-border trade were steep. At Shiprocket, Ghulati built the bridge: simplifying international shipping, compliance, and logistics so that even small sellers in Bharat can access global customers without friction.

Together, they weren't just building a company. They were building infrastructure. And as Shiprocket expanded from shipping into a full-stack commerce platform, the problem grew in complexity. The next phase required leaders who could build depth across every layer: technology, product, operations, finance, and growth.

At the core of Shiprocket's platform is its technology engine, led by Sunil Kumar, Chief Technology Officer. With over two decades of experience across Oracle, Rediff.com, Reliance Entertainment, and EazyDiner, Kumar brings rare depth in building large-scale, high-availability systems.

At Shiprocket, he leads platform architecture, engineering, and data infrastructure, powering everything from real-time courier allocation to predictive logistics intelligence.

Translating that technology into intuitive products is Praful Poddar, Chief Product Officer. With prior leadership at OLX Group and Snapdeal, Poddar has spent years building marketplace and platform experiences for diverse user bases.

At Shiprocket, he leads product strategy across checkout, fulfilment intelligence, and seller tools, with a single-minded focus on collapsing complex workflows into seamless, self-serve experiences for Bharat’s merchant base.

Driving the core shipping engine is Atul Mehta, CEO of Domestic Shipping. With experience spanning Amazon and Unilever, Mehta brings a rare blend of operational rigour and consumer understanding. At Shiprocket, he leads the domestic shipping business, focusing on network expansion, service reliability, and partner ecosystem strength, balancing scale with experience in one of India's most complex logistics environments.

Shiprocket’s commerce growth layer is led by Gaurav Mangla, CEO of Checkout & Ads. A founder himself, Mangla joined Shiprocket following the acquisition of Pickrr, bringing a builder's instinct and deep understanding of digital commerce. At Shiprocket, he has built and scaled the checkout and ads ecosystem, helping merchants improve conversions, drive customer acquisition, and unlock new revenue streams. His 0-to-1 background makes him particularly effective at turning new business lines into meaningful growth engines.

Financial strategy is led by Tanmay Kumar, Chief Financial Officer. With over two decades across PepsiCo, Yum! Brands, Spencer's Retail, and Burger King India, Kumar has consistently driven growth and strengthened financial governance. He brings particular expertise in IPO readiness and public market transitions, a valuable asset as Shiprocket prepares for its next phase of scale.

Building the organisation behind this growth is Saumya Khati, Group Chief Human Resources Officer. With leadership experience across global consumer brands, Khati brings deep expertise in talent strategy, leadership development, and organisational transformation. At Shiprocket, she is focused on building a high-performance culture and strengthening leadership pipelines as the company scales as a technology-first organisation.

What ties this leadership team together is a shared conviction: that the future of commerce in India will not be built by a single marketplace, but by infrastructure that enables millions of businesses to participate and grow.

From three leaders identifying a broken system to a full-stack tech platform powering commerce at scale, Shiprocket's journey reflects a simple but powerful idea: build the rails, and the ecosystem will follow. And in doing so, they are quietly shaping what could become the most critical layer in India's digital economy, the commerce backbone of Bharat.