Ola sees more key exits: Pranav Tiwari, Sarmad Nazki resign

Ola

Two more senior executives have resigned from Ola, the ride-hailing startup backed by Softbank. Pranav Tiwari, the head of engineering of Ola, and Sarmad Nazki, the head of finance at Ola Electric Mobility, have left the Bengaluru-based company, people aware of the development said.

Ola has been losing top executives at a steady pace for several months. Among those who have left the company in the past year are Pallav Singh (Senior Vice-President and one of the oldest Ola employees), Saikiran Krishnamurthy (Senior Vice-President of Growth) and Joy Bandekar (Corporate President of New Initiatives).

Tiwari joined Ola after spending 13 years with companies like Cisco, Google, Cadence Design Systems and Cellworks Research. At Google, he led the company’s Bangalore engineering site, the third-largest engineering office outside the United States.

“Tiwari understands the product, what it takes from a tech and engineering standpoint to deliver profitable growth … It’s a loss,” said a source.

Nazki joined Ola Electric in April 2018 after spending nearly four years in the finance department of ANI Technologies, the parent company of Ola.

Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal (the CEO) and Ankit Bhati (CTO) in 2010, Ola has raised $3.3 billion at a valuation of $5.7 billion. Key investors include Softbank, Tiger Global, Tencent, Matrix Partners and DST Global.

In a statement, Ola had this to say about questions relating to the resignations of Tiwari and Nazki:

“As a growth-oriented organisation, Ola thrives on a culture of performance. This also means that from time to time, we will have to part ways with employees on this account. Every employee who has been and is part of this journey has valued and cherished their learnings from this experience.”