Deepak Gulati, who was working as the president and chief operating officer (COO) of restaurant discovery and food delivery startup Zomato, has resigned within just six months of his appointment.
However, reports suggests that Deepak Gulati will continue to be part of the company in an advisory role. He was appointed in March to strengthen various business verticals of Zomato.
Commenting on this, Zomato’s spokesperson said,
It is true that Deepak is no longer a part of the executive team. He will continue to be associated with Zomato as a member of our Board of Advisors. Deepak has been, and continues to be a wonderful coach and an advisor to Deepinder.
Deepak Gulati is a former CEO of Tata Docomo who joined Zomato as its President and COO earlier this year. Prior to that, he worked at Tata Teleservices for five years as the Executive President. He also led the group’s foray into GSM with Tata Docomo, and launched the Tata Docomo brand.
Retaining executives or senior level members of the team has always been a struggle for most Indian startups. Zomato also faces such problem. Earlier, Durga Raghunath had quit as its Senior Vice President of growth, within six months of being appointed. Prior to that, CMO Rameet Arora had quit within 10 months after his appointment.
Flipkart had also witnessed a number of senior members or executives quit the company within a few months of appointment. Currently, Snapdeal is also going through such phase after it decided to let-go acquisition offer and run independently.
Last week, Zomato announced the acquisition of a last-mile logistics startup Runnr in order to strengthen its logistics services. The company reported food ordering revenues as 8 times than FY16 for the financial year ended FY17.