Online payments and e-commerce company Paytm is adding more 
muscle to its board. Paytm, which is preparing to launch its payment bank operations soon, has appointed Mark Schwartz, vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group and chairman of Goldman Sachs in Asia-Pacific, as a member to its board. The company said Schwartz would actively guide business teams at Paytm to ensure strong and consistent growth.
Schwartz, who is currently based in Beijing, has been with Goldman Sachs for over 27 years. He retired from the firm in 2001 but later rejoined as the Asia-Pacific chairman in 2012 and played a crucial role in shaping Alibaba Group’s $25-billion IPO in 2014.
“Mark has played a critical role in building leading businesses in the Asia-Pacific region and across the world. I am confident his insights would offer excellent leadership for Paytm as we work towards bringing half-a-billion Indians to the mainstream economy,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO of Paytm.
The move is in line with Paytm’s efforts to strengthen its financial and technology management. Schwartz’s appointment follows that of Amit Singhal, former head of search at Google, who recently joined the company’s board, and had been reported by ET last week.
Apart from Schwartz and Singhal, the Paytm board currently consists of its CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, along with SAIF Partners Ravi Adusumalli and Vivek Mathur, AliPay’s Jing Xiandong and Peng Yijie, InMobi’s Naveen Tewari, WhatsApp’s Neeraj Arora, Sapphire Ventures’ Jai Das and Tata Gorup’s Ratan Tata.
“India is one of the most dynamic and interesting economies in the world and I’m incredibly excited about working with Vijay and his team,” said Schwartz.
Experts believe that with a huge inflow of capital and a strong team, Paytm has been able to drive customer behaviour through discounts and allied services and will be able to leverage the same as it launches its payment bank.
