Who is Amrita Ahuja, Indian-origin CFO of Block named in latest Hindenburg report

Amrita Ahuja currently serves as CFO and COO of Block

Two months after accusing India's Adani Enterprises of fraud, US investment group Hindenburg Research launched a new attack Thursday, this time against Jack Dorsey's mobile payments firm Block, saying it "widely overstated" its user base.

Among the executives named in the latest Hindenburg report is Amrita Ahuja. The Indian-origin Harvard graduate is currently serving as Chief Financial Officer of Block, whose shares tumbled up to 22 percent following the publication of the report, before recovering slightly. Here are five points on Amrita Ahuja:

1. Amrita Ahuja is the current Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Block. She joined the payments platform in 2018 as its CFO, when it was still named Square. Square later rebranded to Block and Ahuja took over as COO in February this year.

2. Amrita Ahuja is the daughter of Indian immigrants to the US. Her parents owned a day care centre near Cleveland in Ohio, according to The Wall Street Journal.

3. She was appointed to the Board of Directors at Airbnb in 2021 and to the Board of Directors at Discord in 2022. “The idea of connection and belonging is core to me as a child of immigrants who moved across continents before settling in the States,” Ahuja said at the time of joining the board of Airbnb.

4. Before Block, she had stints at Morgan Stanley and Walt Disney Company, where she served as an analyst. In 2007, Ahuja joined Fox as Director of Business Development and played a role in the launch of its streaming service Hulu. She left Fox in 2010 for Activision Blizzard, the maker of video games like Candy Crush and Call of Duty.

5. According to her LinkedIn profile, Ahuja studied economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and later joined Duke University for further studies. In 2007, she received an MBA from Harvard Business School.