Gautam Thakar appointed global CEO of OLX Autos

OLX Group, the classifieds business unit of Naspers-owned global consumer internet group Prosus, has appointed Gautam Thakar as the global CEO of OLX Autos.

Thakar will lead the organisation, which has more than 4,000 employees across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United States, from March 15, a statement said. 

OLX Autos claims to run online digital trading platforms in addition to more than 500 inspection centres across the USA, Asia and Africa, each year inspecting 3,00,000 vehicles and enabling 1,30,000 vehicle transactions.  

Most recently, Thakar was the CEO of Star Sports in India, which was acquired by the Walt Disney Company. Prior to that, Thakar was in the United States for over a decade, serving as the global CEO of Shopping.com and LivingSocial (acquired by Groupon). He was a part of the founding management team of baazee.com, which the statement said pioneered ecommerce in India before being acquired by eBay in 2005. In the early days of his career, he worked with P&G in Asia. 

“He (Thakar) brings a unique set of capabilities to this exciting opportunity, including an exceptional general management track record, strong customer orientation, deep marketplace experience, and a rich experience leading and inspiring teams on a global footprint. We will all benefit from his wealth of knowledge and experience as we bring convenience and trust to the way people buy and sell cars,” Martin Scheepbouwer, CEO of OLX Group, said.

OLX Group operates a network of trading platforms, serving 300 million people every month in more than 30 countries around the world. It helps people buy and sell cars, find housing, get jobs, and buy and sell household goods.  

In November 2019, OLX Group had announced investing $400 million in Berlin headquartered online car marketplace Frontier Car Group (FCG) in a deal involving primary and secondary issue of shares.