Who is Suhail Sameer, BharatPe CEO resigning after five months of taking over

The unicorn fintech company BharatPe revealed on January 3 that CEO Suhail Sameer would resign and take on the role of strategic advisor starting on January 7, 2023.

This will allow a smooth transition for the organization's existing CFO, Nalin Negi, who has been named interim CEO and will work with top executives to strengthen execution across all business stages, the organisation said in a statement.

Rajnish Kumar, Chairman, BharatPe Board said, “On behalf of the Board, we would like to thank Suhail for the tremendous contribution he made in steering BharatPe into a leadership position as a fintech player in India and helping us ride through various challenges during this journey.”

After being named the company's president in August 2020, Sameer took over as BharatPe's CEO in August of the previous year. Ashneer Grover, the other co-founder of the business, and Sameer had a falling out. Grover was fired from the business last year following a highly public argument over charges of financial mismanagement.

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Prior to that, Sameer served as the Founding Managing Director of CESC Ventures, where he developed Dr Vaidya's and Too Yumm! brands for contemporary Ayurveda. He also served as the Asia-Pacific leader of the clean-tech practice at McKinsey & Company as an Associate Partner.

Sameer actively invests in clean-label personal care products, food products, and financial inclusion. One of his angel investments is in Rupeek, the largest digitally secured lending company in India, as well as the farm-to-table naturopathic brand Gourmet Garden and India's largest clean-label personal care company, MamaEarth. 

Sameer has been associated with the Rockefeller Foundation's work on rural electrification in India and is a Niti Aayog Mentor of Change, a government programme to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. 

He graduated from Delhi College of Engineering and has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management.

Since the beginning of 2022, four senior executives from the company—including Vijay Aggarwal, chief technology officer, Rajat Jain, chief product officer for lending and consumer products, and Nehul Malhotra, head of consumer lending platform PostPe—have left to pursue their own entrepreneurial endeavours.