Gurbaksh Chahal, CEO of RadiumOne fired over domestic violence charges

Gurbaksh Chahal, founder and CEO of US-based enterprise ad platform RadiumOne, has been fired from the company after he pleaded guilty to domestic violence charges for assaulting his girlfriend, according to a report by Re/code. According to the company's website, its chief operating officer (COO) Bill Lonergan has taken over as new CEO.

The development comes after news reports emerged last week that the Indian-born Chahal had hit his US girlfriend 117 times during a tussle over her alleged infidelity. And while Chahal accepted to losing his temper, he denied any wrong doings and instead defended himself. In a personal blog post, titled 'Can You Handle the Truth?', he wrote, "...and yes, I lost my temper. I understand, accept full responsibility and sincerely apologise from the bottom of my heart for that. But, I didn't hit her 117 times, injure her, or cause any trauma as the UCSF medical reports clearly document. This was all overblown drama because it generates huge volumes of page views for the media given what I have accomplished in the Valley."

Chahal says that although he was charged with 45 felony counts of domestic violence, all these charges were dropped and ultimately the case settled when the authorities recognised that they had no case against him. He added that the allegations by the police against him were overblown and grossly exaggerated.

"Right now, there are many people calling for my head. I am the recipient of death threats and hateful language aimed not just at what I was accused of, but attacking me for my ethnicity, my social class, and even my gender. Many would gladly lynch me because of my origin–and not the facts of my case," he stated.

RadiumOne, founded by Chahal in September 2009, builds intelligent software that automates media buying, making big data actionable for marketers and connects them to their next customer. A serial entrepreneur, he had had earlier built BlueLithium Inc which was later acquired by Yahoo Inc. He had also founded another company, called ClickAgents Inc, which was bought out by ValueClick.