CEO in the morning, Ola cab driver by night: Meet Hemant Bakshi

Hemant Bakshi and Bhavish Aggarwal at a media briefing on January 25

Hemant Bakshi, the newly-appointed CEO of Ola Cabs, has revealed that he moonlights as a cab driver by night to better understand customer experience and expectations.

A former Unilever executive, Bakshi has been appointed CEO of Ola Cabs, the ride-hailing arm of ANI Technologies. The company is reogranising into three units - ride hailing and mobility, financial services, and logistics and e-commerce. Ola founder and incumbent CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has stepped down from the role as the company streamlines operations.

Bakshi, who is helming the ride hailing operations, seems to know that nothing beats first-hand experience. Perhaps that is why he has taken to driving his car around Bengaluru at night, moonlighting as an Ola cab driver on weekends.

At a media briefing organised on January 25, Bakshi said he takes his car to offer ride-hailing service across Bengaluru on weekends to understand the experience.

He is not the first CEO of a ride hailing service to go undercover as a driver. In April 2023, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi had told The Wall Street Journal that he spent months undercover as an Uber driver and delivery agent to better understand and address the problems they face.

Hemant Bakshi was the executive vice president of the marketplace and chairperson of Unilever Indonesia. An alum of IIM-Ahmedabad and IIT-Bombay, he joined Ola four months ago.

Meanwhile, Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal has said he will remain “fully involved” with the business. “There is a partnership between Hemant and I. He brings the strategy and operations, while I am the proverbial entrepreneur, thinking about newer ideas and innovating,” Aggarwal said at the media briefing on Thursday.