Suhail Sameer CEO of BharatPe resigns

New Delhi : BharatPe, backed by Sequoia Capital, is constantly under attack. According to two sources, the company’s CEO Suhail Sameer resigned two weeks ago after a turbulent year. As with the departures of Bhavik Kodaliya, Nitish Sharma, and Chandrima Dhar in June, this is a significant departure from the company’s leadership.

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

A representative from BharatPe has issued a press release confirming the news. After January 7th, Sameer will be a “strategic advisor” for the company, according to the announcement. Nalin Negi, BharatPe’s CFO, has been elevated to the position of interim CEO while the board of directors looks for a permanent successor to Sameer.

Ashneer Grover, along with his wife Madhuri Jain, were fired from BharatPe in March due to fraud and other irregularities; Sameer has served as CEO since August 2021.

Sources say that another senior executive at BharatPe is actively looking for new opportunities. As these discussions are confidential, a second source also asked not to be identified saying, “there would hardly be any long timer at the senior functions of the company” if this executive left as well.

In addition to Geetanshu Singla, BharatPe lost its vice president of technology, Rajat Jain, its chief product officer of lending, and Vijay Aggarwal, its chief technology officer, in November.

Meanwhile, over the past few months, BharatPe has been working to fortify its product team by bringing on board two senior executives of critical importance: Abhishek Sharma and Pawan Pathak. But that doesn’t diminish what a wild ride of a year the business has had.

Initially, things got messy when a recording of Grover verbally abusing a Kotak Mahindra employee over the Nykaa IPO surfaced, prompting him to take a leave of absence from BharatPe. For its part, Kotak had threatened legal action against Grover. Next, an external audit revealed misappropriation of funds, and Jain (Grover’s wife and BharatPe’s head of controls) was fired.

When that happened, Grover left the business and the board of directors. Kodaliya, another co-founder of BharatPe, quit a few months ago, citing management issues as the reason. Grover had made accusations against Sameer after he left as well. The departure of Sameer has left BharatPe searching for a new CEO, and the identity of that person is anyone’s guess.