Former Infosys CFO Rajiv Bansal is Ola's new CFO

BENGALURU: Ride-hailing company Ola has appointed Rajiv Bansal as its chief financial officer (CFO). The former Infosys CFO will be joining Ola’s leadership team in January next year. Its current CFO Mitesh Shah will lead strategic finance initiatives as part of Bansal’s team.
Bansal, who was a former EVP and CFO at Infosys, resigned from the second-largest IT services firm in October.He, will, however, continue as an advisor to the CEO and the Board through December 31 to provide a smooth transition.
Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO, Ola said, “He brings with him a wealth of experience from his long tenure at Infosys. Rajiv’s understanding and expertise in the finance domain is extremely valuable for us at this juncture of growth. His experience of being at the helm of finance for one of India’s most respected companies will help us in adopting best practices and in realising our mission of building mobility for a billion people. I’m looking forward to working with Rajiv as we scale Ola to newer heights in the time to come!”
Bansal said, “Ola has been growing at an extraordinary pace and has created tremendous value in the process, to customers, partners and other stakeholders under Bhavish’s leadership. As one of India’s most valuable startups, it carries with it a mighty responsibility of setting an example on corporate governance and best practices in finance. I am thoroughly excited about coming onboard with this amazing team to co-create yet another globally admired company out of India.”
Bansal’s appointment comes at a time when the company is growing at a scorching pace. It introduced a first of its kind cab-leasing programmes to induct more drivers into its fleet. Taxi-hailing company Ola is buying cars from Nissan India that will be leased out to its driver partners to expand its fleet even as it competes with San Francisco-based Uber to get a bigger pie of the country’s personal transportation market.
Ola through its subsidiary Ola Fleet Technology has rolled out a programme for drivers for which cars will be purchased from both Nissan and Datsun brands. Recently, Ola said that it will invest Rs 5,000 crore in the coming year to expand its newly formed cab leasing business. Founded by Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2011, users across 102 cities can book a taxi using the Ola mobile app from over 350,000 vehicles across cabs, auto-rickshaws and taxis on its platform.