Hires & Promotions: Zupee, BharatPe, Twitter

Zupee Appoints Gaurav Mehta As Chief Marketing Officer

Zupee has appointed Gaurav Mehta as the Chief Marketing Officer. In his new role, Mehta will be responsible for leading the marketing activities to ensure maximum penetration in all parts of the country.

“At Zupee, he will also be responsible for establishing strong marketing fundamentals and mentoring a growing marketing team, while actively pursuing strong liaison with like-minded marketing partners across industries enabling faster and accelerated growth,” the company stated.

Mehta brings over 19 years of experience, having led the marketing verticals of major companies including Yahoo India, OLX and GirnarSoft. Analytics and research-driven marketer, he has been in the mobile marketing space since 2008. Mehta was felicitated with the ‘Marketer of the Year’ award by exchange4media Indian Marketing Awards in 2015 and Power Profile by LinkedIn in 2016. He was also recognised as ‘Forty under Forty’ by exchange4media Group in 2018 & 2019. He is an avid reader with interest in the field of politics, economics and history.

Congratulating Gaurav Mehta on his new role, Dilsher Singh Malhi, Founder & CEO, Zupee said, “We are pleased to have Gaurav head the marketing division at Zupee. As a user centric, rapidly growing player in a technology-led innovation field, we needed someone who understands marketing well to further enhance Zupee’s positioning and reach. Given Gaurav’s extensive experience in the IT sector he brings a sound understanding of both B2B and B2C segments and an omni-channel approach to problem solving. We believe he is the right person for job and wish him a long association and the very best of stay at Zupee”.

A post graduate in Brand Management and Media Planning from MICA, Gaurav has led various marketing functions across major companies. Prior to joining Zupee, he was the Chief arketing Officer at GirnarSoft, and led the marketing function at CarDekho, Gaadi.com and Zigwheels.   

Speaking on his appointment, Gaurav Mehta, Chief Marketing Officer, Zupee said, “I am excited to join Zupee as the organisation and the online gaming sector are both going through a phase of rapid growth. It feels exciting to be a part of a young, dynamic and ambitious team which is open to experimentation and learning. Being in a tech-led innovations sector where we get to be the trendsetters and pioneers is inspiring. Dilsher’s vision is fantastic and I will be working with the team to work towards the fulfilment of that vision and take the best of what Zupee has to offer to every part of the country. It’s the best time for a marketing professional to build scalable partnerships, use data driven insights to reach newer audiences, and accelerate growth.” 

Founded by IIT Kanpur graduates Dilsher Singh Malhi and Siddhant Saurabh in 2018, Zupee, is India’s fastest growing skill-based mobile gaming and knowledge platform, running live quiz tournaments on its app, where users compete with friends and other players for monetary rewards. The online gaming sector has witnessed a boom during the pandemic, growing at 40% CAGR with over 400 million users in the country. The industry is expected to have a market size of $3.9 billion in India by 2025, marking an increase of 113% from what it is now.

BharatPe Names Parth Joshi As CMO

BharatPe has named Parth Joshi as the Chief Marketing Officer. Parth has extensive experience in building brands, across India and overseas markets. He will work closely with Suhail Sameer, BharatePe’s Group President. This is the fourth key leadership appointment by BharatPe this year. The company has already announced the appointment of Gautam Kaushik (ex-MD & CEO, PAYBACK) who leads the payments business, Sumeet Singh (ex-Partner, Amarchand Mangaldas) as General Counsel and Head of Corporate Strategy and Amit Jain as the Chief Risk Officer.

Parth will bring his in-depth understanding of brands, product development and marketing to fuel BharatPe’scontinued growth. In the past, Parth has played a key role in building many brands across geographies in multi-national companies. Prior to joining BharatPe, Parth was the Head of Marketing– Global Expansion Markets, Reckitt based out of Singapore. He has also held various marketing roles in GSK & L’Oréal. Parth is an alumnus of MDI, Gurgaon.

Commenting on the appointment, Ashneer Grover, Co-Founder and CEO, BharatPe said, “As we chase bigger ambitions, it is key to ensure that the brand and marketing strategy of the company keeps pace with our evolving business. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Parth as he joins our leadership team. I am confident that Parth’s experience with FMCG giants will be instrumental as we aspire to build BharatPe as preferred financial services and credit partner for tens of millions of merchants. Also, his in-depth understanding of consumer aspirations and behaviour would be key as we build products like BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) for the end customers and scale PAYBACK in India in the times to come.”

Added Parth, “BharatPe has seen stupendous growth over the last couple of years. It is phenomenal how India has accepted digital payments and BharatPe has been at the forefront of this transformation. I am looking forward to build BharatPe as the preferred brand for our customers. We also have big plans for the consumer side and I am excited to lead and build this business with the team.”

Twitter Interim Grievance Officer Dharmendra Chatur Quits, Jeremy Kessel Takes Over

Media reports say that Twitter has appointed California-based Jeremy Kessel to replace Dharmendra Chatur who stepped down amid the platform's ongoing battle with the Indian government over the new IT rules.  

Kessel is the Global Legal Policy Director of Twitter.  

However, his appointment doesn't comply with the Intermediary Guidelines which requires the grievance redressal officer to be a resident of India.  

The microblogging platform has been at loggerheads with the Government of India over the implementation of the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code of 2021.