What was the reason behind Zomato promoting Gaurav Gupta from COO to Co-Founder? Can an employee be promoted for a Co-Founder position? Find out how in this article.
Gaurav Gupta joined Zomato as global head for advertising sales and then he was promoted to COO role. Now he is promoted as a co-founder of Zomato. His position as COO will still be there after being the co-founder. Gaurav was promoted to the co-founder position in March, 2019.
According to an email sent by Gupta, he will be moving from the COO role to lead Zomato's nutrition business.
Gaurav Gupta mentioned in the mail saying,
“I was anyway not doing this role, and it will be great for all of us if we find someone better than me to do this role,” wrote Gupta.
Let's understand why he was elevated from COO to a Co-Founder role.
In a move that Zomato’s Co-Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal stated as ‘empowerment for the right person', the company’s 38-year-old Chief Operating Officer (COO), Gaurav Gupta was given the title of co-founder. The announcement, which comes as a surprise to many, was made by the company’s CEO Goyal in an internal mail on the 1st of March, 2019. Zomato confirmed the development but declined to share further details.
Deepinder Goyal stated in the mail saying,
This is not a ‘reward’- this is empowerment, for the right person, to seamlessly be able to level-up to a role which he has shown the potential for.” He further mentioned that along with the new title of co-founder, Gupta’s role and title as the COO would still be maintained.
Rishabh Rathi
Before coming to Zomato, Gaurav worked as a consultant at A.T. Kearney for a decade. [as per Gaurav Gupta's LinkedIn Profile] Apparently, this is not the first time he has been promoted since he joined the online food delivery and restaurant-discovery company in 2015. In January 2018, at a time when Zomato was seeing key shuffle in top management roles, he was elevated from his earlier role of global head for advertising sales to the COO. As the COO, he was given charge of critical operations including content and new initiatives such as their cloud kitchen module, Zomato Infrastructure Services along with sourcing and reviews on the platform. The newly appointed co-founder was credited by the CEO Goyal in his internal mail with success of businesses such as subscription service Zomato Gold, Hyperpure (where it supplies fruits, vegetables and meat to restaurants), events unit Zomaland and also upcoming payments business under Zomato Pay.
The announcement comes about a year after Pankaj Chaddah, who co-founded Zomato with Goyal in 2008, hung his boots at the food technology firm in March 2018. It is quite rare, according to those tracking the ecosystem, in a market like India where founders typically have not given way to operators and professional CEO’s, with exceptions being Kalyan Krishnamurthy at Flipkart who replaced Binny Bansal as CEO in January 2017 and Pranay Jivrajka, an early employee at Ola who was given the title of a founding member and now heads Foodpanda as its CEO.
In his own words, Revant Bhate, partner at venture firm Kstart, who was earlier entrepreneur in residence in Faasos, says, “This is a good sign, which shows the startup ecosystem is maturing and that execution is key. To build value, you will need a great team, and it’s a good sign that founders are willing to share credit and value with others who are contributing”.
Zomato is backed by investors like Chinese payment giants Ant Financial (payment affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba), venture capital firm Sequoia and Naukri-owner Info Edge with a valuation of over $2 billion. But with competition from companies like Uber Eats, Swiggy, etc. and a never ending demand for better service, only time will tell how this move will affect in helping Zomato stay ahead of its competitors.
That's all for this article. We have come to the end of this story.
Is your questions answered in this article? Getting promoted to a co-founder role is the best thing a person can achieve in a startup. Isn't it? But it's not an easy task. Is it? It takes a lot of courage to believe in yourself, a dozen of efforts and perseverance. Keep Hustling and Keep Doing your best. Who knows you might be promoted to a higher position in your organization just like Gaurav Gupta. All the best on your Journey.
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Yash Gupta
FAQ's
Who is Gaurav Gupta?
Gaurav Gupta is the co-founder of Zomato who was elevated to the role of Co-founder from COO.
When he joined Zomato?
Gaurav Gupta joined Zomato in 2015 and was working as a global head for advertising sales for Zomato.
What's his current role in Zomato?
Gaurav Gupta is currently leading Zomato's nutrition business.
Who is the founder of Zomato?
Pankaj Chaddah and Deepinder Goyal are the founders of Zomato. Zomato was founded in July 2008.
Who are the co-founders of Zomato at present?
Zomato has four cofounders— Deepinder Goyal, Gunjan Patidar, Gaurav Gupta, Akriti Chopra, and Mohit Gupta.
Author: Shubham Kumar
Source : https://startuptalky.com/gaurav-gupta-co-founder-zomato/
Date : 2021-06-10T15:30:00.000Z