Exclusive: Oyo’s global CMO Rohit Kapoor quits; to join Swiggy

SoftBank-backed Oyo’s global chief marketing officer Rohit Kapoor has resigned from the company after a nearly four-year stint, said three people aware of the details.

“Kapoor has already resigned from Oyo and is currently serving [his] notice period,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “He’s likely to be relieved from his responsibilities at Oyo by August.”

This will be a significant loss for Oyo at the leadership level. Kapoor was elevated to a global chief marketing officer in March this year from the position of the chief executive officer (Southeast Asia and India). He has been with the Gurugram-based company for about 44 months and joined Oyo as CEO of the rental business (India).

At the time of Kapoor’s elevation, Oyo also said that its global chief business officer, Ankit Tandon will take responsibility for Southeast Asia with a specific focus on Indonesia and the Middle East region as its CEO while Ankit Gupta, CEO of Hotels and Homes vertical, was also elevated to the role of CEO (India).

According to sources, Kapoor is in advanced talks to join Swiggy in a senior position. “Kapoor is likely to join the foodtech unicorn if nothing changes at the last moment,” said another source who also requested anonymity as talks are private.

Queries sent to Rohit Kapoor, Oyo and Swiggy did not elicit an immediate response. We’ll update the post in case they do.

The resignation of Kapoor has come at a time when Oyo has seen the revival of its business after 18-24 months of poor momentum due to the pandemic. The company had claimed over 5X growth in May and added over 1,250 corporate clients in the three-month period (March-May this year).

Prior to this, the company saw a couple of resignations at the senior level in late 2020. Gaurav Ajmera, global head of revenue management, and Burhanuddin Pithawala, global head of marketing and growth, quit the company in September 2020. Mohit Bhatnagar, Sequoia Capital’s managing director, also resigned from Oyo’s board of directors to take up the role of an observer in the company in October 2020. Last year, Harshit Vyas, OYO India COO, also left the company. Vyas recently joined the content marketplace Pepper Content as a chief business officer (CBO).

Oyo has been looking to go public for quite some time. However, the company’s IPO plan is likely to materialise in the last quarter of this calendar year. In October 2021, the company filed the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI to raise Rs 8,430 crore.