E-commerce firm Meesho has strengthened its board of directors with the appointment of four independent directors, including a former CII chairman and a JPMorgan veteran, the firm said on Friday, while expressing confidence that the new members would help the firm democratize online commerce for all.
The SoftBank-backed firm said the new members, Kalpana Morparia, Hari S Bhartia, Surojit Chatterjee and Rohit Bhagat, would support Meesho’s commitment to fostering a culture of transparency and strong corporate governance.
“Our ability to adapt to the needs of our users and adopt bold strategies has enabled us to achieve remarkable growth, including our recent milestone of becoming India’s first horizontal e-commerce platform to achieve profitability. As we embark on the next phase of growth, we are confident that the collective wisdom and diverse perspectives of the board will play a pivotal role in steering the company towards new milestones,” said Vidit Aatrey, Founder and CEO, Meesho.
One of the new board members, Hari S Bhartia, is a former president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He is the founder and co-chairman of Jubilant Bhartia Group, which has four flagship companies listed on Indian stock exchanges, with a combined market capitalisation of about $7.65 billion, including Jubilant Pharmova Limited.
Another member, Kalpana Morparia, is a veteran leader in India’s financial sector with over 45 years of experience. Her career highlights include her role as President of the South and Southeast Asia region at JPMorgan, where she designed strategy for India and ASEAN countries and maintained key regulatory relationships.
Prior to that at ICICI Bank Ltd, she was instrumental in the Group’s capital raising exercise as well as the merger of ICICI Ltd with ICICI Bank in 2002. She also serves as an independent non-executive director on the boards of HSBC Holdings, Hindustan Unilever Limited and Philip Morris International Inc., besides being a former board member of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd.
Meesho’s other new board member is Rohit Bhagat, who is the non-executive chairman of PhonePe, independent director of AssetMark and lead independent trustee of Franklin Templeton ETF Trust. His previous board and advisory roles span companies such as Axis Bank, Flipkart and FreeCharge. His operational and leadership responsibilities include President (Asia Pacific) of BlackRock, Global COO of Barclays Global Investors and Senior Partner of The Boston Consulting Group.
Meesho has also appointed Surojit Chatterjee to the board of directors. He is the founder and CEO of Ema, a generative AI company based in San Francisco. In 2021, he guided Coinbase through a successful IPO as its chief product officer. Previously at Google, Chatterjee grew Google Mobile Ads and Google Shopping into multi-billion-dollar businesses as vice president and chief product officer.
According to sources, the experience of these new members is also expected to help the company in its efforts to achieve a successful initial public offering (IPO), which will take place in more than a year.
The Bengaluru-based company has raised a total of $1.36 billion since its inception in 2015.
Meesho is competing with players like Amazon, Flipkart and Reliance’s JioMart to tap into India’s e-commerce sector, which is projected to see five-fold growth from $59 billion in 2022 to an estimated $300 billion by 2030.
Last year, Meesho said its loss narrowed 48.42 per cent from Rs 3,251 crore in FY22 to Rs 1,675 crore in FY23.
Revenue from operations for fiscal year 2022-23 grew 77 percent over the previous year.
First published: August 2, 2024 | 16:28 IS
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