upGrad Filling Up Senior Leadership Roles Amid COVID-19, Plans to Double Employee Base

While most companies have gone on a hiring freeze or rationalizing their human resources, growing sectors like edtech are on a hiring spree.  upGrad, India’s largest online higher education company in its most recent development onboarded Rohit Dhar as the new President - Products, this July. Rohit, who had co-founded Brainybatch Internet, India’s first lending platform focused on making education affordable by providing short-term, has over 13 years of experience in managing products for leading companies like OLX, Flipkart, e-Bay, PayPal, and StubHub. He will be leading the entire Product, Data Science, Analytics, and Design teams at upGrad.

Prior to him, the company onboarded Puneet Tanwar as President - Technology who will be leading the Technology vertical at upGrad. Puneet has accumulated over 20 years of experience in software development and joins upGrad from 1E, a UK-based software product company where he was Head of Engineering, India. Prior to this, he has held leadership positions in Engineering in firms such as Diebold Nixdorf, Microsoft and Electronic Arts.

In June upGrad also appointed Deepak H. Singhka, who started his career at Mahindra & Mahindra and went on to work at BYJU’S. There, he was responsible for initiating the ‘Field Sales’ across multiple cities in India, along with ‘Inside Sales’ in the Bengaluru office. His notable contribution includes helping the edtech set up their e-commerce channel with Amazon and Flipkart. As the Vice President - Business, Deepak will help steer the entire business towards growth and manage as well as improve upon success rate for working professionals, the college, and the academy business.

Talking about the recent hiring’s, Mayank Kumar, Co-Founder & MD, upGrad said “COVID-19 is an opportune time for the edtech sector and our strategy is to make the most of the opportunity and double-up our workforce. Leadership hiring plays an integral role in this, it is the right time to invest in senior talent which will help us to get ready for the new normal of workplace and learner dynamics. With our newly assembled team, we look forward to creating an impactful talent pool within the organisation that will help us drive new businesses and provide learners with the best edtech products.”

On April 1st, upGrad had onboarded their CEO – India, Arjun Mohan, who was erstwhile serving as the Chief Business Officer (CBO) at BYJU’S. The company is geared towards doubling up its workforce to 2000 by the end of this fiscal. The hiring will happen across all spectrum between fresher’s as well as lateral hiring. On the employee front, upGrad has announced salary reversal on the first day of this quarter owing to the positive business growth in past months and have declared work from home until the end of this year, in order to end the growing apprehensions amidst its workforce.

About upGrad:

upGrad is India’s largest online higher education company. Founded in early 2015, upGrad has onboarded over 30K paid learners and impacted more than half a million individuals globally, within a short span of 5 years.

upGrad provides online programs in the areas of Data Science, Technology, Management and Law to college students, working professionals and enterprises. These programs are designed and delivered in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIT Madras, IIIT Bangalore, MICA, NMIMS Global Access, Jindal Global Law School, Duke CE, Deakin University, Liverpool John Moores University and others.

With an 80% program completion rate, robust tech platform, outcome-based learning approach, industry-relevant curriculum, finest university credentials, strong mentorship, and steadfast placement support, upGrad has established its position as the leader in the Indian education system.

IIIT Bangalore and upGrad's PG Diploma in Data Science is India’s first-ever PG Diploma to be recommended and validated by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM). The program is India's largest Data Science program with over 10,000 alumni & learner-base, which now provides learners with certification from NASSCOM FutureSkills, thereby making the program aligned to Government approved National Occupational Standards (NOS) to facilitate the upskilling of India’s IT workforce and make them abreast of the new-age skills. Through this first-of-its-kind collaboration, upGrad joins NASSCOM’s mission to make India a hub for innovation and a global hotspot for a skilled talent pool.

upGrad has been awarded the title of ‘Best Tech for Education’ by IAMAI in 2019. upGrad received the ‘Best Education Brands’ award by Economic Times in 2018, Most Innovative Companies in India' by Fast Company in 2017 and has made it to LinkedIn’s ‘Top 25 Startups’ two years in a row in 2018 and 2019.

IT services deal signed between GE, Mahindra Satyam

Mahindra Satyam today said it has received an extension of its multi-million dollar contract with GE for next three years January 1, 2010.

GE, which is among the top five customers of Mahindra Satyam for over a decade now, gets support in the specialised areas of Application Development Maintenance, Business Intelligence and engineering services, Satyam Mahindra said in a statement.

"We thank the leadership at GE, for having reposed their confidence in us, and reinforce our resolve to excel in our deliverables to our esteemed partner, for years to come," Mahindra Satyam Global Account Executive Arvind Malhotra said.

GE has signed a similar contract with 11 other vendors. "GE recognizes the support extended over the years by Mahindra Satyam, and their commitment to delivery excellence, even during trying times," GE GDC Leader Steve Morrison said.

Satyam management had been in constant dialogue with its major clients, including GE and others to continue working with it.

"Mahindra Satyam has gained 32 new customers in the last four months," a top official had said earlier.

"Some of the large clients we had lost earlier are coming back and are reassigning new business," Atul Kunwar, the company's president of the Middle East, Europe, India and Asia Pacific regions, said on the sidelines of an industry conference.

The company, currently has about 420 clients, he said, compared with 480 in January before it was left battling for survival after Satyam's founder revealed India's biggest corporate fraud.

Satyam was acquired by Tech Mahindra in an auction in April and subsequently renamed. The number of employees the company has on reserve has come down to 7,000 from 8,500 in July, Kunwar said.

"With the business improving and new deals coming in, we have slowly started taking in employees from the virtual pool."

Agencies