InMobi appoints Manish Dugar as VP, finance and legal

Bangalore and San Francisco-based mobile ad network InMobi has appointed Manish Dugar as vice-president, finance and legal, in a global capacity. He will be working from the firm's Bangalore office.

Commenting on the appointment, InMobi's founder and CEO, Naveen Tewari, said, "Manish's depth and breadth of financial, legal and operational expertise make him integral to InMobi's success as we accelerate our global expansion. His proven financial leadership within high-growth technology firms and profitable, publicly traded companies make him the perfect fit for the company."

Dugar joins InMobi from RPG Enterprises, an Indian industrial conglomerate, where he served as group chief financial officer. Prior to that, he was the chief executive of the BPO business (globally) at Wipro Technologies, a company where he served in various senior roles over a span of 10 years. Earlier, he worked at companies such as Reckitt Benckiser, Coca Cola India, Marico and Larsen & Toubro Ltd. Dugar holds an MBA degree from IIM Calcutta.

Set up in 2007, InMobi's platform enables brands, publishers and developers to engage with global consumers through mobile advertising. The company is backed by investors such as SoftBank Corp, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. In 2011, it had struck the largest deal in the mobile internet space in India with $200 million commitment from Japan's SoftBank. InMobi has raised around $215.5 million till date and has offices in India, the UK and the US (as well as in other global locations). The company currently employs 800 people and has customers in 165 countries. It has recently expanded its footprint into the rest of Asia, Europe and Australia.

As of May 2013, the company's mobile ad network was reaching 691 million unique users per month across 165 countries via mobile devices (covering more than 40 per cent of smartphone users globally), over 16 per cent rise in the number of consumers from 578 million in January this year. Interestingly, India came third (with 49 million users) among the countries that have the largest number of monthly unique users for InMobi – after the US with 156 million (which is the clear leader) and China with 63 million users.

Earlier this year, InMobi also joined the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Samsung, Facebook and Amazon to secure a place in the MIT Technology Review's list of 50 Disruptive Companies for 2013.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)