Ola Cabs has appointed a former Unilever Plc official, Hemant Bakshi, as its chief executive officer, as the ride-hailing firm seeks to increase its foothold in India ahead of a much-awaited public listing by its sister company.
The company's founder Bhavish Aggarwal will stay in the firm which competes with Uber Technologies Inc. and whose backers include SoftBank Group Corp. and Tiger Global Management.
"There are many examples where such a model of two levels of governance is highly successful," Bakshi told Bloomberg News over telephone. "
As partners, Bhavish and I want to build Ola into an institution in the future."
ANI Technologies, the parent firm of Ola Cabs, has 14 million monthly users and 1.3 million active drivers on its platform, it said in a statement.
Ola Electric, the sister company of Ola Cabs, plans to raise $662 million through an initial public offering this year. The company will issue fresh shares in the IPO, while existing investors including Aggarwal and Softbank will sell nearly 95.2 million of their stock.
