Ola hires Pranav Tiwari and Sanjay Kharb as Vice Presidents of Engineering
Bangalore, February 13, 2017: Ola, India’s most popular mobile app for transportation has made two significant appointments today, strengthening its core technology leadership. Pranav Tiwari, former CTO of Cellworks as well as an ex-Googler has joined as the Vice President of Engineering and will be working towards optimizing growth and profitability by bringing in necessary efficiencies in the supply chain function. Sanjay Kharb who was earlier VP – Production Engineering at InMobi has joined as Vice President of Engineering Infrastructure and will strengthen efficiencies in Ola’s technology infrastructure including site operability, compliance and data systems.
Ankit Bhati, CTO and Co-founder at Ola, said, “Ola has consistently invested in technology, consolidating supply chain and building a robust technological backbone, by bringing onboard, world class talent. Both Pranav’s and Sanjay’s roles are critical and essential to steer Ola to its next phase of growth. They bring in relevant and significant experience with large technology businesses and they have an integral role to play in Ola’s aspirations to create innovative solutions that will efficiently solve for the diverse mobility needs of the country. I am excited to welcome them in joining our mission of building mobility for a billion Indians.”
Pranav Tiwari will be leading Ola’s team of engineers to enhance and develop Ola’s fulfillment stack and allotment platform. The team will work closely with the supply chain team to help create a better experience for customers and driver partners alike, by building solutions that will effectively optimize use of vehicles on the platform, reduce deviations in routes, and improve matching of customer with drivers, among others. Local nuances such as one-ways, short-cuts and unmapped terrains along with diversity in culture, languages and demographics make for a challenging ground reality in India. Therefore, innovations around mapping and geo-locations are extremely critical to offer a seamless experience. Pranav’s experience with Google in maps and data mining will aid Ola in driving localized solutions to combat issues that customers and drivers face on road today.
“Ola has redefined the way India travels. Ola is driven by the vision of building sustainable mobility solutions for a billion Indians and I am extremely excited to join this mission. I am looking forward to building innovative solutions alongside the brilliant team at Ola, solving for India’s unique commuting needs.” said Pranav Tiwari on his appointment as Vice President – Engineering, Ola.
Prior to joining Ola, Pranav was the CTO of Cellworks, where he led the building of computational platforms that could predict outcomes of therapy using simulation. He has also worked at Google India for over 12 years leading the engineering site at Bangalore, which is one of the 3 largest Google engineering offices outside US. Pranav has over 35 patents in his name, as a result of the path breaking work he has led in the field of web data mining and data scalability.
As Ola continues to expands its reach across the country and introduce innovative mobility solutions, it is crucial to build robust and reliable infrastructural technology. Sanjay comes onboard with the mandate to ensure seamless working of critical technology exchanges that back Ola’s platform, including system stability, environment sanity, developer productivity along with enabling faster detection and resolution of defects. With over a million rides being coordinated on peak days, it is essential for the Ola platform to work seamlessly enabling both consumers and driver partners to have an opportune experience. Under Sanjay’s leadership, Ola’s engineering teams will be able to deliver improved experience in managing entrenched inefficiencies and enhancing infrastructural capabilities.
“Ola has achieved tremendous success over the last 6 years, and truly understands what the Indian consumers need and have been able to built technology to support that. I am extremely excited to be now able to contribute to their growth journey. I am sure we will be able to together evolve Ola’s platform into a self evolving technological mammoth.” said Sanjay Kharb, on his appointment as Vice President – Engineering Infrastructure, Ola.
With over 20 years of varied experience across e-commerce, mobile advertising, travel, IoT and auto industry Sanjay led the technology infrastructure domain in Inmobi. He has also worked with Makemytrip as the Vice President of Business Intelligence, Data platform, Data Science, Infrastructure and Security.
Ola has been strengthening its leadership team across domains including technology over the last month. Dr. Badri Raghavan, joined Ola as the Chief Data Scientist last week. Prior to this Vishal Kaul joined as the Chief Operating Officer and Shalabh Seth was appointed the CEO of Ola Fleet Technologies.
About Ola:
Founded in Jan 2011 by IIT Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola (formerly Olacabs), is India’s most popular mobile app for personal transportation. Ola integrates city transportation for customers and driver partners onto a mobile technology platform ensuring convenient, transparent and quick service fulfillment. Ola is committed to its mission of building mobility for a billion people. Using the Ola mobile app, users across 102 cities can book from over 500,000 vehicles across cabs, auto-rickshaws and taxis. Ola has also introduced a range of shared mobility services on its platform like Ola Shuttle and Ola Share for commute and ride-sharing respectively. The app is available on Windows, Android and iOS platforms. Please visit www.olacabs.com and www.olacabs.com/media for more information.
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