One of India’s earliest ‘startup-friendly’ and perhaps the most iconic VC firm, Sequoia Capital India today announced that it has appointed ‘three exceptional senior leaders’ for various posts, who will be joining the company immediately.
Shailendra J Singh, the Managing Director at Sequoia Capital India, made the announcement in a LinkedIn post, saying that “team at Sequoia Capital India feels massively privileged to welcome industry leaders like Gayatri, Ajey and Shweta,” some of the biggest names in the Indian business and technology market.
Let us have a quick look at the careers so far, for all the three new appointees.
Gayatri Vasudeva Yadav:
Gayatri Vasudeva Yadav has joined Sequoia Capital India as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) after having served the role of President of Consumer Strategy and Innovation for Star India. Gayatri, a marketing maverick, has about 20 years of experience in the field, and will be based in Bangalore.
Gayatri has earned accolades for her career at Star India, where she came up with and executed a number of marketing strategies. Under her guidance, the brand introduced Star Sports, the now-Disney+ Hotstar, one of the companies most optimistic endeavors. Gayatri, a feminist, was also responsible for starting the “Nayi Soch” brand plan on Star Plus, which aimed to drive women’s empowerment.
Along with fulfilling her duties as the CMO of the venture fund, she will also work closely with the CMOs of portfolio companies to help them launch and grow brands.
On her joining, Yadav said, “I am honored to join Sequoia Capital India and help daring founders build legendary companies and brands. This is a seminal point of time in the development of the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem and there is a massive opportunity to create global brands out of the region. I am excited to join this amazing team and partner with an incredibly talented set of founders in achieving this mission.”
Ajey Gore:
Ajey, a brand in himself in the Asian technology ecosystem, and a trendsetter among CTOs in the region, Gore will be joining as the Operating Partner, Technology. In his current capacity, he will work closely with CTOs and CPOs of portfolio companies and help them in building and scaling engineering, data science, product and design functions. Moreover, he will take the work of current Director of Technology, Anandamoy ‘Roy’ Roychowdhary to the next level, and help expand his labors of 7 years to never seen before heights. Anandamoy has been promoted to ‘Principal’ at Sequoia.
Ajey, who has worked at GoJek as the head of engineering and Group CTO, is a commerce graduate turned engineer. He founded CodeIgnition, an infrastructure automation consulting, networking and devops startups, which was acquired by GoJek in 2016. Another addition from his portfolio, hoppr, was acquired by Hike, the popular messaging service in 2015.
While Ajey hasn’t said anything about his latest change of roles, he has changed his LinkedIn profile to reflect his latest venture.
Shweta Rajpal Kohli:
The new Head of Public Policy of Sequoia India, Shweta will be based in New Delhi and “will work with industry bodies and associations, and will facilitate dialogue and collaboration between our startups and governments in India and SEA to enable progressive policy frameworks to strengthen our startup ecosystem.” One of the most highly experienced and well-regarded public policy experts for technology in India and South Asia, Shweta will advise portfolio companies on public policy and regulatory topics.
Shweta has previously worked with Salesforce, serving as the Director of Government Affairs and Public Policy for India & South Asia. She has some big titles under her resume, and has worked as the Head of Public Policy for Uber for India & South Asia.
Thrilled to join @Sequoia_India to drive the policy agenda for the startup ecosystem and VC industry. Look forward to partnering the govt to unlock regulatory levers that will turn India and SEA into a hub for building world-class startups. https://t.co/Yyr5q4lpeq
— Shweta Rajpal Kohli (@ShwetaRKohli) August 4, 2020
These new hires come days after Sequoia announced two new funds, focused on India and SE Asia, with a combined value of $1.35Bn. he amount has been divided into two different funds: a $525 million venture fund and a $825M growth fund.
