Exclusive: Paytm’s head of growth and AVP Ankit Gera quits

Retaining the leadership team is very important for any growth chasing firm or startup. In fact, every startup tries its best to hold on to such talents that can make or break things for the firm. However, SoftBank-backed Paytm has been finding it tough to keep its leadership team intact.

Several employees including Nitin Misra and Deepak Abbot have put in their papers since the beginning of this year. Joining Misra and Abbot, Assistant Vice President Ankit Gera had also resigned from the company. 

According to three Entrackr sources, Gera has moved from the company last month. His LinkedIn profile also mentioned that he was with Paytm till the beginning of September. Gera was leading the growth and product for the Noida-based company. 

He was solely responsible for driving user growth. “He was a very bright asset for Paytm as the company grew significantly under his leadership,” said a source on condition of anonymity. He had worked for over 55 months (four years and seven months) at Paytm.

Before leading user growth and product, Gera had also headed Paytm's payment gateway business for a year. Entrackr couldn’t ascertain who has taken over Gera’s role at Paytm.

While it’s not clear which reasons led to the departure of Gera, Abbot and Misra, sources emphasised that maturity of ESOPs and high-pressure situation have been the primary factors for resignations. 

This is the sixth crucial exit from Paytm in the past six months. Besides Gera, Abbot and Misra, Paytm Mall’s COO - Amit Sinha and Paytm’s COO Kiran Vasireddy had resigned from the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company.

According to sources, Amit Veer, Chief Business Officer & Senior Vice President- Wholesale & Offline Payments may also resign. We couldn’t verify his movement independently.

Meanwhile, Paytm has been ramping up its senior leadership team by elevating existing employees and hiring new ones. It elevated former CFO Madhur Deora to a president position while Vikas Garg promoted to deputy chief financial officer (CFO) role. 

Recently, Amit Nayyar joined as president to drive financial services business. He had worked with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Arpwood Capital.  Ankit Sinha joined last month to look after Paytm’s cloud and AI verticals. Trivago’s former India Head Abhinav Kumar has joined to lead marketing function at Paytm.

 Entrackr has sent questions to Paytm regarding Gera's departure, we will update the post as and when it responds.