Hires & Promotions: Swiggy Instamart, FCB/SIX India, Elastic

Swiggy Instamart's vice president Karan Arora steps down

Karan Arora, vice president and head of supply chain management (SCM), has departed from Swiggy, following a tenure of three and a half years. 

He confirms the news through a social post that reads, "After 3.5 years of building Swiggy Instamart, this exhilarating journey of mine comes to an end. I feel extremely proud to be associated with something that has fostered so much consumer love."

Arora further mentioned that he is teaming up with Karthik Gurumurthy, former Swiggy Instamart head in cofounding a company, "Joining hands with Karthik Gurumurthy and cofounding something exciting. More on that soon."

His first stint was at Sterling Commerce in 2007 and subsequently worked at various renowned organisations including GE Healthcare, Technova, Snapdeal, and Medlife.com.

With this development, Arora joins the list of VPs and senior vice presidents (SVPs) who departed from Swiggy over the last year. In April 2023, former chief technology officer (CTO) Dale Vaz quit to start his own venture. A few weeks later, Nishad Kenkre, VP, head of revenue and growth, Instamart and Ashish Lingamneni, VP, head of brand and product marketing, also departed from the company. Anuj Rathi, Sidharth Satpathy, and Karthik Gurumurthy also moved on from Swiggy during the same period.

FCB/SIX India ropes in Gagan Prabhakar as VP, CX operations & Arun Iyer as sr. director, CRM

FCB/SIX India has appointed Gagan Prabhakar and Arun Iyer as VP - CX operations and sr. director – CRM, respectively.

In his new role at the agency, Prabhakar will lead CRM, web strategy, and content verticals. Iyer, on the other hand, will be responsible for leading the development and implementation of personalisation, data-backed strategies, and managing the CRM team for delivering omnichannel customer experiences for FCB/SIX India’s clients.

Prabhakar moved from Dhani Stocks, where he was the general manager, of marketing, whereas Iyer was the lead strategy consultant at Mirum India. With over seventeen years of experience, Prabhakar has also worked with HDFC Bank, Indiabulls Group and most recently Dhani Stocks. Iyer comes with over a decade of experience and has been associated with companies like Mirum India and The Walt Disney Company.

Speaking on the new hires, Ankit Banga, CBO, FCB/SIX India says, “At FCB/SIX India, we understand the power that creativity, data, and technology together possess in delivering an exceptional customer experience. The inclusion of Gagan and Arun strengthens our CX division, enriching it with their data proficiency and extensive experience in large-scale CRM campaigns across finance, healthcare, and the QSR sectors. Additionally, we're enhancing our Salesforce capabilities to better serve a significant portion of our clientele.”

Rohan Mehta, CEO, FCB Kinnect and FCB/SIX India adds, “Welcoming Gagan and Arun aboard will synergise creativity and technology, bringing exceptional customer experiences (CX) across all our client offerings, to further strengthen our focus on using ‘creativity as an economic multiplier’.”

Prabhakar shares, “I’m thrilled to be part of FCB/SIX India and FCB Kinnect and I believe in the company's philosophy of Growth, Glory, and Guts. I'm confident that by leveraging a data-centric approach and our innovative solutions across web verticals, we can help our clients achieve significant growth in the digital landscape.”

Iyer mentions, “I'm all geared up to join FCB/SIX India and leverage my passion for data-driven strategies, to build meaningful customer relationships and drive business results. Given the agency's culture of innovation, I look forward to pushing the boundaries of what's possible, ensuring we continue to set new benchmarks for excellence in connecting brands with their audiences in the most impactful ways."

Elastic ropes in Karthik Rajaram as vice president and general manager in India

Elastic, the company behind Elasticsearch, has named Karthik Rajaram as area vice president and general manager for its India operations. He will lead Elastic's business strategy and growth in India, drive customer satisfaction and focus on building strong regional partnerships.

Rajaram brings two decades of technology leadership and enterprise sales experience to Elastic and was most recently the area vice president and country head of India at Freshworks. His understanding of the market and customer needs, gained in sales roles at Akamai, Salesforce, and Microsoft, will be instrumental in advancing Elastic’s mission to enable everyone to find answers that matter in real-time and at scale.

“We are delighted to welcome Karthik to our team. His background in building scale in India, combined with his strategic acumen and customer-centric approach, directly aligns with our aim to rapidly grow Elastic in this important market,” says Barrie Sheers, vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan, Elastic. “Karthik’s extensive global experience and local expertise will position us to capitalise on our significant market opportunity and help customers reap the benefits of search-powered AI, to safely grow their business through innovation and operational efficiency."

“I am thrilled to join Elastic at such an exciting time in the company’s journey. Elastic’s innovative efforts to create leading search-powered solutions across multiple market segments, including search, security, and observability, can truly empower organisations to harness search-powered AI like never before,” comments Rajaram. “We have a huge opportunity to drive momentum in the market, especially around generative AI, and I am committed to helping our customers in this region unlock new opportunities and gain efficiencies through the adoption of the Elasticsearch platform. I look forward to driving Elastic’s growth objectives and delivering substantial value to our customers.”