Paytm hires Times Internet's Deepak Abbot to beef up product team

One97 Communications Ltd, which runs mobile wallet and e-commerce platform Paytm, has hired executive Deepak Abbot from Times Internet Ltd as senior vice president of product growth.

The development was first reported by the Medianama website on Wednesday. When contacted, a Paytm spokesperson told TechCircle the company will issue a statement shortly.

Before Paytm, Abbot was the head of product marketing at Times Internet. He is also the founder of Smartapp, which was incubated at Times Internet.

For Abbot, this will be the second stint at Paytm. He had earlier served as Paytm's head of product marketing from March 2013 to October 2014.

Abbot has nearly 19 years of experience and worked with companies such as Reliance Entertainment, Zapak.com, Satyam Computers and CyberMedia. He started his career as a product executive with CyberMedia in January 1998 and served the company for two years.

Paytm has strengthened its board over the past few weeks. Last week, Alibaba Group's global managing director K Guru Gowrappan joined Paytm's board. Amit Singhal, the former head of Google search, and Goldman Sachs Asia-Pacific chairman Mark Schwartz have also joined Paytm's board recently.

The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company posted a net loss of Rs 1,548 crore for the financial year through March 2016 on total revenue of Rs 830 crore. Its payments business reported a loss of Rs 482 crore on revenue of Rs 158 crore for the year. For 2014-15, Paytm reported a net loss of Rs 372 crore on total revenue of Rs 323 crore.