Mouli Raman steps down as OnMobile director; new CEO Rajiv Pancholy joins board

OnMobile co-founder and till recently its chief executive Chandramouli Janakiraman or Mouli Raman has resigned from the board of the company. With this, both the co-founders of the company are no longer associated with the management of the country's largest mobile value added service (VAS) firm.

Earlier, it's another co-founder and former chief Arvind Rao had quit the firm over corporate governance issues.

Simultaneously, Rajiv Pancholy, who joined the company as its new CEO recently, has been appointed as the managing director and additional director on the board of directors, the company said in a filing with the stock exchange.

OnMobile has also appointed Francois-Charles Sirois as an additional director of its board. Sirois is the president and CEO of media and technology holding company Telesystem. He also doubles up as president & CEO of OnMobile Systems Inc, the largest shareholder and promoter of OnMobile Global.

OnMobile scrip shot up 9 per cent to end the day at Rs 36.3 a share on the BSE in a flat Mumbai market on Friday.

There has been a significant change in the leadership of OnMobile in the past. Besides seeing exit of two CEOs, in the last three years, it has also lost about three CFOs, the last one being Rajesh Kunnath.

Founded in 2000 by Raman and Rao, OnMobile offers services like content management, aggregation and distribution, voice short codes, missed call alerts, multimedia push services, mobile search, ringtones, ring-back tones, phone backup, cloud address book, voice portals, music products, mobile radio, entertainment products like football, cricket, quizzes and gaming solutions, movies and a safety app called Help Me on Mobile.

Headquartered in Bangalore, the company offers services in 59 countries. With over 1,700 employees worldwide, it has offices in London, Paris, Madrid, Silicon Valley, Miami and Seattle.

OnMobile has reported a net loss of Rs 139 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2014. The total revenue stood at Rs 225 crore.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)