Arjun Mohan working with Byju’s, but not int’l CEO

livemint.com:

MUMBAI : Arjun Mohan, the former chief executive officer of upGrad and former chief business officer of Byju’s confirmed on Thursday that he is working with Byju’s co-founder Raveendran on “multiple things" but said he hasn’t been roped in for the role of international CEO. Responding to queries from Mint, Mohan said, “I am working with Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran on multiple things but I have not joined the company on this role." He didn’t respond to follow up messages requesting details on the scope of his current role in Byju’s. A spokesperson for Byju’s declined to comment.

For more than a decade, Mohan was the chief business officer at Byju’s before joining edtech unicorn upGrad as its chief investment officer in 2020. Mohan quit the startup in December 2022. In his previous stint with Byju’s, Mohan had helped the Bengaluru-based decacorn scale domestically and internationally.

The development comes at a time the firm’s overseas unit Byju’s Alpha is under the scanner of its global bondholders who have lent $1.2 billion to the group in 2021. The lenders had taken the company to court complaining over a ‘missing’ $500 million from Byju’s Alpha and sought to take control of the US unit. In response, Byju’s said on 5 June that it was stopping repayment of interest over its $1.2-billion term loan B.

It also sued Redwood Capital Management and other lenders in the New York Supreme Court challenging the acceleration of the repayment of the loan. At the center of the dispute seems to be non-compliance by Byju’s in filing its FY 22 results. Last month, the firm’s statutory auditor for six years Deloitte Haskins & Sells, resigned with “immediate effect" citing “long delayed" financial statements for Fiscal Year 2022.