GroupOn Owned SoSasta.com Sees Top Management Shuffle

GroupOn-owned SoSasta.com has seen a flurry of top management exits including co-founders Ananya and Udayan Bubna stepping down from their leading role as managing director and COO respectively, although they will continue to be involved with the company's activities, Techcircle.in has learnt from sources close to the company.

Both Ananya Bubna, Managing Director, GroupOn India and co-founder of SoSasta.com, and Udayan Bubna, who was the COO, have moved into the role of President and Advisor at the company. An e-mail message was sent out to GroupOn India employees in August to communicate their new roles.

When contacted, both the Bubna brothers declined to comment while an e-mail query sent by Techcircle.in to the global spokesperson of GroupOn did not elicit any response till the time of posting this article. GroupOn is on its way to an IPO to raise up to $750 million and is in a quiet period.

Ankur Warikoo, till recently entrepreneur-in-residence for Rocket Internet and evaluating business opportunities in India in the online space, had joined GroupOn India as a consultant early this year. Quoting sources, Medianama said that Warikoo had been appointed the CEO of GroupOn India.

Among others who have moved out are Piyush Shukla, head of research & city planning at GroupOn India, who is now assistant marketing manager at Arcelor Mittal, and Vaibhav Aggarwal, vice-president at Groupon India, who left the firm last month and is now studying management at The Wharton School of Business. Srinivas Nudurupati, the chief marketing officer (CMO), is also learnt to be on his way out after a five-month stint. Also, the chief technology officer, Seshadri Krishnan, is also moving on.

This news regarding the key executives comes close on the heels of various issues being faced in India by GroupOn, known as the pioneer of coupon sites. Techcircle.in had reported earlier that many employees, including some of the top brass, were looking to exit GroupOn India, which has its headquarters in Bangalore. The firm is rumoured to have an attrition rate of 50 per cent. Techcircle.in learnt that most of the top level exits have happened after the Bubna brothers undertook the change in roles.

GroupOn suffered from a data breach recently. It is also involved in legal battles related to its logo and a cyber-squatting company for the domain name Groupon.in. However, it has continued to grow fast, hiring 200 employees in less than six months.

GroupOn India has operations in Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Pune. In India, the site serves users in 11 cities and features a daily deal on the stuff to do, see, eat and buy. As managing director of GroupOn India, Bubna had revealed plans to hire sales people all over India, in tier II cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Surat, Ludhiana, Vishakhapatnam and Thiruvananthapuram.