By Start Ups
According to the 21-year-old founder, the biggest challenge for Zepto has been “bringing together an exceptional team.”
“Today, most of my day is conducting back-to-back candidate interviews. Mostly, vice presidents (VPs) that we are trying to hire in the business verticals that we have, like home and personal care, or meat and seafood,” said Palicha, while speaking at the seventh JIIF Foundation Day event in New Delhi on July 6.
According to the 21-year-old founder, the biggest challenge for Zepto has been “bringing together an exceptional team.”
“It is really hard to do that across every vertical. Not only identifying and getting the right people to join but also getting them to go all in on something. For people that are already very accomplished, telling them to go all in on something is quite hard to do. Most of my time is spent on making sure the team is exceptional and well-equipped,” he said.
In January this year, Nikhil Mittal, a former senior vice president (SVP) at Zepto, was promoted to chief technology officer (CTO).
This comes hot on the heels of Zepto’s massive $665 million series F funding round at a $3.6 billion valuation last month, as the company is gearing up to go public in the next 12-15 months, Business Standard had reported earlier.
Ahead of its public listing, the company is planning to go on a hiring spree.
“We also plan to hire between the 400-500 headcount mark, focusing on engineering, product, category, growth, and marketing roles. We currently have a team of 1,600 people,” Palicha had said at the time of the fundraise.
Zepto is currently operating around 350 dark stores across the top ten cities in India, and flush with funds, has plans to expand into another ten cities and increase its store count to 700.
However, Palicha’s comments also come at a time when the company has witnessed a string of top-level exits over the past months.
In June, the firm’s chief marketing officer Amritansu Nanda put in his papers. During the same month, Viral Jhaveri, chief business officer and chief growth officer, and Manik Oberoi, VP, Growth and Retention at Zepto, left as well.
Ashish Shah, Zepto’s former SVP of Finance who had joined the company in June 2021, also reportedly quit in December 2023, and has now joined DealShare as its chief financial officer (CFO).
> Zepto is planning to increase its store count from 350 to 700, and enter 10 more cities by March 2025.
Top-level exits:
June 2024:
> Amritansu Nanda, chief marketing officer, Zepto
> Viral Jhaveri, chief business officer and chief growth officer, Zepto
> Manik Oberoi, VP, Growth and Retention, Zepto
December 2023:
> Ashish Shah, Senior Vice President (SVP) of Finance, Zepto
First Published: Jul 07 2024 | 4:40 PM IST