Marking the second exit in its senior management within the course of a week, Dale Vaz has resigned from his position as Chief Technology Officer at Swiggy. His resignation will be effective from next month, at which point his successor will step up.
Vaz will be succeeded by Madhusudhan Rao, who is currently the senior VP of ConsumerTech and Fintech (Engineering and Product) at the food and grocery delivery aggregator. Rao has been a part of Swiggy for the past four years, while Vaz – a veteran of Amazon after spending 11 years at the e-commerce giant – resigned after a period of nearly five years.
For now, Vaz will continue in this current role – till May – and once Rao takes over the reins, Vaz will play an “advisory role” for the firm for an “extended period” of time. Vaz joined Swiggy after spending eleven years at Amazon. After leaving Amazon, Vas joined Swiggy as the head of engineering and data science and was promoted to CTO three years ago.
“We confirm Dale Vaz has decided to move on from Swiggy to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. He will continue in his role till May 2023 & will be associated with Swiggy for an extended period in an advisory role. We thank him earnestly for his many contributions to Swiggy,” a spokesperson for Swiggy said in a statement. No elaboration was given as to exactly what “opportunities will be.”
“Madhusudan Rao will take over as CTO. Madhu has been with Swiggy for over 4 years and has decades of tech leadership experience with a proven track record of understanding what our customers need,” the spokesperson added.
This development comes during a troubling time for the food and grocery delivery giant. Zomato is one of its chief rivals, and the former’s Gold program – Zomato’s loyalty program – has helped it regain lost ground and the market share from Swiggy. It also comes on the heels of Karthik Gurumurthy – Swiggy co-founder and head of its quick commerce business Instamart – announcing that he was stepping aside and taking a sabbatical. Furthermore, a recent filing revealed that Atlanta-headquartered investment management company Invesco has reduced Swiggy’s valuation from $10.7 billion to $8 billion.
“I have loved being a part of this journey but this journey has been arduous with a lot of compromises on physical & mental well-being. I plan to take a sabbatical now to come back afresh and build something (0-1), something which I have loved… Live back and playback those memories of 2020 and 2021,” his LinkedIn post read. Gurumurthy will be succeeded by Phani Kishan Addepalli, Swiggy co-founder.
