Ola hires Joy Bandekar from Flipkart to head new initiatives

Ola, the country's largest cab aggregator, has hired Joy Bandekar from e-commerce firm Flipkart as its corporate president to lead new initiatives.

Bandekar will also be part of Ola's leadership team, the company said in a press release.

A mechanical engineer and an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Bandekar was corporate president at Flipkart prior to his new assignment.

In his earlier stints, he has worked in various capacities at eBay, Kirloskar, Reliance Industries, Maxworth Orchards and Atcom Technologies over a 20-year career.

Ola, run by Mumbai-based ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, has been strengthening its top deck as it invests heavily to grow operations.

Barely a fortnight earlier, Ola appointed Infosys Ltd's former finance head Rajiv Bansal as its chief financial officer.

In July, the company brought in former Lazada Indonesia managing director Sundeep Sahni as its vice president of new initiatives. Sahni is also part of Ola's core leadership team.

Also in July, Ola roped in former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin as independent director.

Ola was founded in January 2011 by IIT Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati. It competes with San Francisco-based Uber for India's burgeoning ride aggregation space. Ola has a network of over 3,50,000 vehicles on its platform and operates in 102 cities.

Last month, Ola completed its Series F funding round by raising $500 million from Scottish investment firm Baillie Gifford and China's Didi Kuaidi, besides some existing investors.