BharatPe makes former Razorpay executive Pankaj Goel its new CTO

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

BharatPe on Wednesday said that it has roped in former Razorpay executive, Pankaj Goel, as its chief technology officer (CTO). Prior to joining BharatPe, Goel was the head of payments engineering at payments infrastructure provider Razorpay. As a part of his new role, Goel will be leading the technology function at BharatPe and spearhead innovation strategy across its group companies.

The new appointment comes at a time when the startup has been roiled by controversy since last year, and has sued cofounder Ashneer Grover. In November last year, BharatPe saw its former CTO Vijay Aggarwal — along with several other senior executives — call it quits. Among them were Nehul Malhotra, head of their buy-now-pay-later product, Rajat Jain, chief product officer for lending and consumer products, and Geetanshu Singla, vice president, technology.

“I am thrilled to be a part of BharatPe, focussing on building a portfolio of fintech products for a wider set of merchants and consumers. As digital becomes more mainstream, I believe there is a huge opportunity for fintech companies to catalyse the next level of growth for merchants, as well as make an impactful contribution to the overall India story,” said incoming CTO Goel. Goel will be reporting to Nalin Negi, chief financial officer and interim chief executive officer (CEO), BharatPe.

Negi was appointed interim CEO in January this year, when former head Suhail Sameer moved on from his role. “With a seasoned engineering leader like Pankaj joining the team, we are confident that we will be able to build best-in-class fintech products that will further enable the next level of growth for the BharatPe Group,” said Negi in a press statement. The company recently appointed a chief