Zomato appoints executive Mohit Gupta as the CEO of its food delivery business

With competition heating up in India's foodtech space and close rival Swiggy's entry into the unicorn club, Zomato is betting on talent to retain its edge. The Gurgaon-based firm yesterday named former MakeMyTrip executive Mohit Gupta as the CEO of its food delivery business.

The Gurgaon-based restaurant discovery and food delivery firm has been on an expansion spree in recent times. But while its monthly order volume as well as pan-India footprint has grown, so has attrition. Zomato has seen a slew of exits over the last year and a half, and changes in the top management stepped up in the past two quarters. Its co-founder Pankaj Chaddah quit the firm in March and then, last month, Mukund Kulashekaran, the chief business officer, resigned within five months of taking on the role.

So the firm is increasingly looking to strengthen its core teams and leadership to accelerate the growth of its business, and Gupta's appointment is a step in that direction. "As the COO of MakeMyTrip Online, Mohit was responsible for the P&L [profit and loss] of online business, the overall business strategy of MakeMyTrip brand, product and technology roadmap and ensuring profitable growth," said a spokesperson for Zomato, adding that Gupta will be now be responsible for leading the growth and P&L of Zomato's food delivery business, and will report to Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal.

Food delivery has been one of the most crucial areas of growth for the company - in the last fiscal, the vertical contributed about 30 per cent of Zomato's overall revenues. "Zomato is solving for a lot of interesting problems and has a very large vision that I resonate with and am excited to be a part of. The team here is incredible, and the pace of growth is exhilarating. I look forward to working with the team and building the Zomato of the future," said Gupta.

Mohit Kumar, the co-founder of Runnr, who currently heads global business for Zomato's food ordering and delivery platform, will now be responsible for building the firm's logistics stack within that business.

Gupta's appointment comes two months after the firm brought on board former GE executive Sameer Maheshwary as its CFO. Zomato previously also hired ex-Egon Zhender executive Rohithari Rajan to lead its global advertising P&L even as former global advertising sales head Gaurav Gupta moved up the ladder to take on the mantle of COO at the firm.

As part of its efforts to strengthen its leadership team, Zomato has also internally shifted existing global senior leaders to its headquarters in Gurgaon. The company's country manager for South Africa and sales head for Portugal, Steven Murray, is set to lead its India people development efforts while Oytun Calapover, Zomato's country manager for Turkey and UAE, will be focussing on growth for listings and reviews product in India.

With agency inputs