Ola appoints Infosys advisor Rajiv Bansal as its CFO

Indian ride-sharing company Ola boosted its efforts to beat Uber this month when it closed its 0 million Series F round, and, fresh off the heels of that news, it has confirmed the hiring of a new CFO.

Bansal, now an advisor to Infosys CEO Visha Sikka, will join Ola in January.

Bansal will join Ola, run by Mumbai-based ANI Technologies, in January. “Our current CFO, Mitesh Shah, will lead strategic finance initiatives as part of Bansal’s team”, Ola chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal said in a statement here.

Bansal has 21 years of experience and spent a major part of his career with Infosys where he handled corporate finance, business finance, operations planning and assurance, investor relations and taxation.

India’s number one app-only cab service, Ola, has roped in Infosys veteran Rajiv Bansal as its chief financial officer. He brings with him a wealth of experience from his long tenure at Infosys.

His experience of being at the helm of finance for one of India’s most respected companies will help Ola in adopting best practices, he added.

Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO, Ola said, “We are thrilled to welcome Rajiv onboard”. He was appointed CFO of Infosys in 2012, when the company was going through a management shake-up, amid a string of senior executive resignations.

A chartered accountant and cost accountant by qualification, Bansal previously worked in Tata Technologies, Cable & Wireless and ABB.

Meanwhile, Uber, which is world’s most valuable startup with an estimated worth of about $50 billion, is closing in the gap and is also said to invest $1 billion in India.

He further said, “I am thoroughly excited about coming on board with this wonderful team to co-create yet another globally admired company out of India”. 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.

With the latest sixth round funding, the company has cumulatively raised $1.3 billion.