Ola appoints Raghuvesh Sarup as its Chief Marketing Officer

• Raghuvesh was most recently, Marketing Director at Microsoft
• Brings over 20 years of marketing, sales and category management experience with globally respected brands like P&G, Pizza Hut and Nokia

Bangalore, January 18, 2016: Ola, India’s leading mobile app for personal transportation today announced the appointment of Raghuvesh Sarup as its Chief Marketing Officer. Raghu brings over 20 years of experience in marketing, sales and brand management across some of the world’s most respected brands like Microsoft, Nokia, Yum! Brands (Pizza Hut) and Procter & Gamble. He joins the company in February and will be part of Ola’s core leadership team, focusing on building Ola as every Indian’s most preferred mobility brand.

Raghuvesh joins Ola from Microsoft, where he was most recently Marketing Director after relocating to India from global stints in Finland in the headquarters of Nokia. His experience across brand management, marketing and managing P&L for large brands makes him a distinguished marketing leader. Having worked with large consumer companies as well as those with cutting edge technology products and services, Raghu brings a strong understanding of driving marketing strategy across offline and online media alike. At Ola, Raghu will lead marketing across the brand and P&L for all categories.

Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO, Ola said, “We are thrilled to welcome Raghuvesh onboard, to lead Marketing and Categories at Ola. He has worked with globally respected businesses and brings valuable experience that will help Ola resonate as the choice of mobility, for a billion people. I look forward to working with Raghuvesh as we continue to build Ola as the preferred mobility brand for every Indian!”

Speaking about his new role at Ola, Raghuvesh Sarup said, “Ola is already a household name in India, serving the mobility needs of millions. Ola’s mission of building mobility for a billion Indians is very inspiring and I consider it a privilege to be building this brand and its core categories further in the time to come. I am really excited to be part of this amazing journey.”

About Raghuvesh Sarup:

With a Masters in Business Administration from XLRI, Jamshedpur and a graduate in commerce from SRCC, Delhi, Raghuvesh started his career with P&G in brand management of brands like Camay and Vicks. He went on to head Marketing for Pizza Hut (formerly PepsiCo restaurants) when the brand entered India in 1997, taking Pizza Hut from 2 stores to over 150 stores by 2004. In 2004, Raghu joined Nokia India as one of the first few employees and led the de-centralizing and scaling up of its distribution in the country. During his 12 year tenure at Nokia-Microsoft, he has led the Mobile Phones category and Go-To-Market in India and launched several devices that Nokia has led with in the market. He worked in Finland as the Global Director of N-Series category and then as Head of Lumia to launch Lumia in 60+ countries. He returned to India in 2013 as Director in Sales and Marketing of Microsoft Mobile Devices (MMDS). Raghuvesh has led large teams in the past and overseen diverse functions like brand marketing, sales, sales operations, retail marketing, advertising, digital marketing and programs and portfolio, planning, and field marketing in his various roles in India and overseas.