Soon after the board of the company issued a statement saying Ashneer Grover will take a short leave from BharatPe, CEO Suhail Sameer spoke to Moneycontrol on the reason behind this decision. In an exclusive conversation, he said that Grover will spend this time on personal reflection adding he will soon join back the company.
Sameer's comments came after Moneycontrol reported that BharatPe’s board decided Ashneer Grover had to take leave of absence.Here's the edited excerpts.
What changes at BharatPe post Ashneer Grover's leave?
Nothing changes at BharatPe. I was the CEO of BharatPe and will continue to be the CEO. Ashneer was always the Founder and he will continue to be the same. Ashneer had suggested the leave of absence to the board because he was very clear that this is a planned attack and therefore he wanted to dissociate himself from the company so that at least if people continue attacking him it does not wire along to BharatPe.
No board member ever suggested Ashneer take a leave of absence. Ashneer was the first one to present it sometime back. We all rejected it.
When did he suggest it?
On day one. When the first article came in. He said I don't want my personal Kotak situation which I am going to resolve amicably to come on to BharatPe. At that time we were thinking that he was overreacting. But then he kept insisting and later we saw merit in his argument for the time being.
So you first rejected Ashneer's suggestion?
Not only me, Ashneer suggested this to the board. He said that he was being attacked but it shouldn't come on the company. All of us got on a call with Ashneer. He explained his point of view. All of us discussed and it was literally the shortest conversation we had. All of us said -- you have lost your mind. None of this is happening. This will blow away. But then it didn't blow away. Then Ashneer kept insisting that this will not happen till we dissociate Ashneer Grover as the person from BharatPe as a company. So this is all Ashneer's personal recommendation and we agreed to his leave of absence. We rejected unanimously and we agreed unanimously.
What role will Ashneer play in the next few months?
No role. He continues to be the board member but he is not going to get involved in day to day operations. He is not going to come to the office. He is going to use this time to generally reflect and figure out from personal and professional dimension on what we should be doing as a company.
This is an opportunity for him to think about what else we should be doing at BharatPe, how the shape of the P&L should change if we have to get to IPO at some point of time. He will spend some bit of time on personal reflection and rejuvenation. He has been working tirelessly for the last four years.
Could this be a precursor to an eventual exit?
Zero chance. Ashneer is not going anywhere. He is the founder of BharatPe. He is integral to BharatPe.
Will you and Bhavik Koladia get larger roles now?
No, I have been the CEO for 8-9 months. Most of the CXOs used to report to me.. maybe a couple of more will be added now. But Ashneer was already spending most of his time on fund raise, repetition management etc. So it is not a lot of change for anyone in the team.
What are your employees saying? How will you address their concerns?
We did a townhall. Irrespective of what the press writes, we have a very very cohesive culture. We are incredibly tight with each other.
Running a startup is not everyone's cup of tea. There's a lot of attrition in the first three months. You join a startup and then in two months you realise whether or not you can do it and that you were better off in a corporate job. But if you look at anyone who has crossed one year at BharatPe, their attrition is negligible.
No media has been able to give me more than five names (exits) so far.
We have a very solid top team which has all incentives in the right equity structure and is super motivated to build this into a very large company.
We did a town hall so that everyone can feel at rest that this is a thought through management decision vs anyone trying to decide for us.
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