After a spate of exits, Ola strengthens its leadership team with key appointments

Ride-hailing major Ola has on November 16 announced that it is strengthening its leadership team with key hires across Ola Financial Services, Ola Cars, and Ola Electric.

These appointments come at a time when the Bengaluru-based firm has witnessed a spate of exits in recent weeks, even as it gears up to list on the public markets.

Ola Financial Services has hired PV Harinarayan as vice president-lending. He has over two decades of experience in the banking and fintech domain, with stints at organisations such as Bajaj Finserv, Barclays and ICICI Bank.

V Ramesh has joined as the vice-president and head of operations at the company's two-wheeler manufacturing plant Ola Futurefactory. He will be responsible for operations and instilling "best practices in safety, quality and productivity" at the Futurefactory, the company said in a statement.

Ramesh has over three decades of experience in the areas of production, quality, design & development, having previously worked at Toyota, Maruti Suzuki, Lucas TVS and TATA Hitachi.

Priteesh Mahajan has joined as the head of Two-wheeler Product Planning and Program Management at Ola Electric, where he will be responsible for overseeing the engineering program management for the company’s two-wheeler programme which includes both the current line-up, as well as future products.

Prior to this, Mahajan worked at ABB where he managed global and local businesses as the Head of the Global Instrumentation business. He has an experience of over two decades.

“We’re ushering in the era of New Mobility and continue to attract the best talent from around the world to build it out at scale. These additions to our leadership team add significant experience and diverse skills to Ola in key areas including lending, production & quality as well as engineering management and I look forward to collaborating with them to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable mobility” said Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal.

Moneycontrol exclusively reported on November 16 that Ola Electric has let go of its Head of Quality Assurance Joseph Thomas, after hiring him barely a year ago. His exit came amid delays in its scooter delivery schedule.

It also comes at a crucial point for Ola Electric, which is racing against time to deliver scooters to customers. While it has sold nearly Rs 1,200 crore worth of scooters, it has faced heat from customers over the delay in the delivery date of its scooters.

Ola's General Counsel Sandeep Chowdhury also recently quit after a nine-month stint in the firm, while Chief Financial Officer Swayam Saurabh and Chief Operating Officer Gaurav Porwal are leaving the company, Moneycontrol reported in October.

Ola said it has accelerated hiring across all levels to strengthen the company's capabilities in AI, big data & analytics, app development and IoT, digital and software technologies.

It recently hired former Amazon India executive Arun Sirdeshmukh as CEO of its vehicle commerce platform Ola Cars and former Cafe Coffee Day CEO Vinay Bhopatkar as head of its delivery business.