BharatPe’s chief executive Suhail Sameer resigns

The rumbling never seems to stop at Sequoia-backed BharatPe. After the eventful year it has had, the company’s chief executive officer Suhail Sameer resigned two weeks ago, according to two sources. This marks another major exit from the firm after Bhavik Kodaliya, chief revenue officer Nitish Sharma and Chandrima Dhar left in June.

“Sameer resigned two weeks ago and is on notice period,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity.

A BharatPe spokesperson confirmed the development via their press release. They said Sameer will transition to “strategic advisor” for the company from January 7. BharatPe’s CFO Nalin Negi has been appointed as the interim CEO, while the company’s board searches to replace Sameer.

Sameer has been serving as CEO of BharatPe since August 2021 and was hired by Ashneer Grover who was ousted from the company along with his wife Madhuri Jain in March on the grounds of fraud and other irregularities.

According to sources, another one of BharatPe’s senior executives is also exploring opportunities at the moment. If this executive also leaves, “there would hardly be any long timer at the senior functions of the company,” said a second source who also requested not to be named as the talks are private.

It’s worth noting that Vijay Aggarwal (chief technology officer); Nehul Malhotra (head of PostPe) Rajat Jain (chief product officer: lending and Geetanshu Singla (vice president, technology) also resigned from BharatPe in November.

Meanwhile, BharatPe has been strengthening its product team over the past few months and hired two key senior executives in Abhishek Sharma and Pawan Pathak. But none of this takes away from the roller coaster of a year the company has had.

The messiness began when Grover’s sound clip of abusing a Kotak Mahindra employee over the Nykaa IPO, came to light— which led to him going on voluntary leave from BharatPe. Kotak had said it would file a case against Grover. Following this, Jain (Grover’s wife) and the head of controls at BharatPe, was fired from the company on the grounds of misappropriation of funds, which surfaced due to an external audit. 

Then, Grover himself resigned from the company and the board. A few months ago, BharatPe’s co-founder Kodaliya also put his papers citing disagreement with the company’s management. After Grover exited, he had made statements against Sameer as well. With Sameer’s exit, BharatPe is now on a lookout for a new CEO, and it’s anybody’s guess who their next CEO can be.