Ola is announcing a fresh executive appointment today. The company has appointed Rajiv Bansal, the former CFO at Infosys (recently transitioned to the position of an advisor to CEO), with more than 21 years of experience in finance, as its Chief Financial Officer,
Rajiv will now be a part of Ola’s core leadership team and will join the company in January 2016. Going forward, Mitesh Shah, who is the current CFO of the company, will lead Strategic Finance Initiatives as part of Rajiv’s team.
Rajiv Bansal is currently an advisor to the CEO at Infosys. In his prior role as the CFO at Infosys, his areas of responsibility included corporate finance, business finance, operations planning and assurance, investor relations and taxation for the whole group.
Prior to becoming the CFO, Rajiv was Vice President and Head of Finance. As the Head of Finance, his key priorities included supporting the company’s growth, managing critical finance functions and adhering to regulatory and compliance requirements.
Before joining Infosys, Rajiv worked in different capacities at Tata Technologies, Cable & Wireless, and ABB. Rajiv is a chartered accountant and cost accountant by profession.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO, Ola said
We are thrilled to welcome Rajiv onboard. He brings with him a wealth of experience from his long tenure at Infosys. Rajiv’s understanding and expertise in the finance domain is extremely valuable for us at this juncture of growth. His experience of being at the helm of finance for one of India’s most respected companies will help us in adopting best practices and in realising our mission of building mobility for a billion people. I’m looking forward to working with Rajiv as we scale Ola to newer heights in the time to come!
Commenting about his new role at Ola, Rajiv Bansal said,
Ola has been growing at an extraordinary pace and has created tremendous value in the process, to customers, partners and other stakeholders under Bhavish’s leadership. As one of India’s most valuable startups, it carries with it a mighty responsibility of setting an example on corporate governance and best practices in finance. I am thoroughly excited about coming onboard with this amazing team to co-create yet another globally admired company out of India.
The appointment of Rajiv Bansal at Ola comes as the company, which is currently India’s third-most valuable start-up, is in the process of overhauling its senior leadership and is looking to hire a new product chief, engineering head and general counsel.
Earlier this month, the company raised $500 million from Baillie Gifford, China’s Didi Kuaidi, Japan’s SoftBank Corp among others. Till now, the company has raised close to $1.2 billion.
