News: BharatPe Co-founder Ashneer Grover steps down as managing director - Report

Leadership

BharatPe Co-founder Ashneer Grover steps down as managing director - Report

The decision comes a week after Grover’s wife Madhuri Jain was sacked as head of controls for alleged misappropriation of funds.
BharatPe Co-founder Ashneer Grover steps down as managing director - Report

BharatPe’s co-founder Ashneer Grover has stepped down as managing director and a director of the Delhi-based fintech company with immediate effect, media reports said. 

In his resignation email sent to the company’s board on Tuesday, he said, "I write this with a sad heart since now I am being forced to bid adieu to a firm of which I am a creator."

He, however, asserted that he would continue as the single largest individual shareholder of the company. Grover holds a 9.5% stake in the company that was valued at $2.8 billion at the time of the last funding round in August. 

Grover's resignation came soon after the Singapore International Arbitration Centre rejected his plea challenging BharatPe’s decision to carry out a governance review at the company.

“From being celebrated as the face of Indian entrepreneurship and an inspiration to the Indian youth to build their own businesses, I am now wasting myself fighting a long, lonely battle against my own investors and management. Unfortunately, in this battle, the management has lost what is actually at stake - BharatPe," Ashneer further added.

Last week, the BharatPe board of directors sacked Madhuri Jain Grover, Ashneer's wife and the company's head of controls, amid charges of misappropriation of funds.

For Grover, who co-founded BharatPe in 2018 to ride the booming online payments market in India, the new year began on a sour note. On January 5, an audio clip was leaked wherein a man, alleged to be Ashneer Grover, can be heard threatening a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee for not financing his application to purchase shares during the Nykaa IPO. Two weeks later, Grover went on a “voluntary leave of absence” till the end of March.

Read full story

Topics: Leadership, C-Suite

Did you find this story helpful?

Author

QUICK POLL

How do you envision AI transforming your work?