Ola Hires Outgoing Infosys CFO Rajiv Bansal As Finance Chief

HIGHLIGHTS

• Taxi aggregator Ola has hired Infosys’ outgoing CFO Rajiv Bansal as its new finance head

• He will be joining the Bengaluru based startup from January 1

• Rajiv Bansal is one of the highest paid executives at Infosys

• Mitesh Shah is now the CFO at Ola

Taxi aggregator Ola has hired Infosys’ outgoing chief financial officer (CFO) Rajiv Bansal as its new finance head, a high-profile recruitment that reflects the scramble for topflight talent among India’s cash flush startups.

Bansal, whose exit from Infosys was announced earlier this week, will be joining the Bengaluru based startup from January 1, three people aware of the development said.

“The offer letter has been accepted,” said a person directly acquainted with the matter.

“This move is in line with our initiative of getting top talent from across industries to further strengthen the core Ola team,” said the person. Bhavish Aggarwal, the co-founder and CEO of Ola, declined to comment. Bansal did not answer phone calls or reply to text messages.

When Bansal, 42, was quizzed by reporters about his plans after Infosys, he gave this cryptic reply: “Our paths will cross again. Whether it will be at a private equity fund, a large business house or a startup, I can’t say at the moment. But I am looking forward to working in a value creation space.”

Mitesh Shah is now the CFO at Ola. The taxi app, which competes with Uber, has been on the lookout for a finance chief for about a year, people who interviewed for the job told ET.

Bansal, who joined Infosys in 1999, was appointed as the CFO of Infosys in 2012. He was one of the highest paid executives.

For the year ending March 2015, Bansal took home a package of $770,858, next only to UB Pravin Rao, the company’s chief operating officer and Vishal Sikka, the CEO of Infosys.

ET was not able to ascertain Bansal’s salary package at Ola. Ola, founded by IIT-Bombay alumni Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, is valued at an estimated $5 billion (Rs 32,500 crore), and counts SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, DST Global and Tiger Global among investors.