From Zomato’s founder to top executives- see how much they earn

Zomato, the $5.4 billion food aggregator unicorn, has just made its first move with respect to its initial public offering (IPO), scheduled to be released this year by being one of the much-awaited events in the startup ecosystem. The company filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last month. Zomato, is the first for India’s tech unicorns to go for a whopping $1.1 billion IPO.

The company's DRHP filing has a list of the designations of its top management and a closer look at it reveals the remuneration of its top leaders, including its co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Deepinder Goyal. While only Goyal and Gunjan Patidar, the chief technology officer of the company holds equity shares, the other executives also hold ESOPs beyond their salary.

How much does the top management earn?

1. Deepinder Goyal (Co-founder and CEO)

• Remuneration: INR 1.9 Cr
• ESOPs: 368,500,000

In the year 2008, Deepinder Goyal along with Pankaj Chaddah founded Foodtech business Zomato. The company has grown exponentially over the years and currently serves in over 10,000+ cities across the globe. Zomato has become a household brand in India’s hustling and bustling cities after raising over $2 Bn across several funding rounds.

In April 2021, Zomato converted itself to a public entity to prep up for its IPO. Zomato then appointed founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal as the managing director and CEO of the company for the next five years, with INR 3.5 Cr as basic salary remuneration. 

Having about 5.51% stake in Zomato, Goyal has taken a voluntary pay cut for next 3 years owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the financial year ended March 31, 2021, Goyal had a salary of ₹1.96 crore. As per the DRHP filing, “Deepinder Goyal has voluntarily waived his remuneration for a period of 36 months starting from April 1, 2021 and shall continue to discharge his roles and duties as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer during this period.”

The seed for Zomato was in Goyal’s head as early as when he was in his last year of engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. “It was towards the end of my five years at IIT that I was ordering a Dominos pizza and back then, you had to call and place an order. So while in college I started a food ordering company, it didn’t work. It was way too early,” Goyal had said during an interview.

2. Gunjan Patidar (Co-founder and CTO)

• Remuneration: INR 1.5 Cr
• ESOPs: 15,363,100

Gunjan Patidar hails from a small town named Khargone in Madhya Pradesh and he started off his career as an intern at Zomato back in 2008. He has worked his way to become the chief technical officer (CTO) of the Foodtech. Patidar had officially started working with the company on January 10, 2010. 

Given his irreplaceable contribution to building Zomato, Patidar was elevated to the cofounder’s position. An alumnus of IIT Delhi, he holds a bachelor’s degree of technology in textile engineering.

3. Gaurav Gupta, (Co-founder and Head of supply)

• Remuneration: INR 3.7 Cr
• ESOPs: 14,197,300

Gaurav Gupta, an IIT Delhi alumnus started his journey at Zomato on June 22, 2015, and through hard work was promoted to the position of cofounder mainly due to his huge success in Zomato Gold and Hyperpure. 

Gupta started off as business head of table reservations at Zomato and eventually in 2017 moved on to the role of global advertising sales head. Between Jan 2018-Nov 2020 he served as the COO of Zomato. Gaurav in 2020 was moved to the position of head of supply. Previously Gupta had been associated with A.T. Kearney Limited for over a decade.

Also Read: Do You Know About The Pro-Zomato Approach?

4. Akshant Goyal, (Chief Financial Officer)

• Remuneration: INR 3.2 Cr
• ESOPs: 9,091,900

Replacing Akriti Chopra who had moved to a new role within the company, Akshant Goyal, former vice president of Kotak Investment Banking, was appointed as the chief financial officer (CFO) of Zomato in 2020. In 2017 he became a part of Zomato as the head of corporate development. Prior to this he had founded and built a fintech startup as a co-founder and CTO.

5. Mohit Gupta, (Co-founder and Head of New Businesses)

• Remuneration: INR 3.8 Cr
• ESOPs: 15,523,900

Owing to his contributions, Foodtech major Zomato had elevated Mohit Gupta, head of new businesses, as cofounder of the Gurugram-based company. Gupta, who was previously with online travel aggregator MakeMyTrip as chief operating officer. Prior to joining MakeMyTrip, Gupta also worked with Zovi and PepsiCo International. A post-graduate from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, Gupta holds an engineering degree from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat.

He has expertise in Business leadership with experience in scaling & running leading food delivery & travel e-commerce businesses.

6. Rahul Ganjoo, (Head of Food Delivery)

• Remuneration: INR 2.9 Cr
• ESOPs: 5,668,200

Rahul Ganjoo, BITS Pilani alumnus, former mentor of change at Atal Innovation Mission, started his journey with Zomato in 2017 as the vice president of product management. He was eventually promoted to the position of CEO of food delivery vertical in October 2020. Prior to that, he has been associated with e-commerce giants SnapDeal, Twitter, Symantec and others.

7. Akriti Chopra, (Head of People Development)

• Remuneration: INR 1.8 Cr
• ESOPs: 11,845,600

One of the oldest members at Zomato, Akriti Chopra, had started her journey as the senior manager of finance and operation in 2011. She has held various positions and worked as the vice president of finance and operation in the food aggregator business for almost seven years, before taking up the role of chief finance officer (CFO) in 2019. 

In 2020, she moved on to the role of head of people development. A graduate from University of Delhi, she has a bachelor’s degree course in commerce from Lady Shri Ram College and is an associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Prior to joining Zomato, she was associated with PwC.

8. Surobhi Das, (Head of Customer Experience)

• Remuneration: INR 55.8 Lakh
• ESOPs Worth: 9,761,900

Surobhi Das over the past eight years at Zomato has held numerous significant roles. She has worked as the chief of staff to founder/CEO, COO, vice president of strategy and operations, global head of content and head of customer experience. 

Surobhi holds a bachelor’s degree of architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and is an alumnus of the prestigious B School, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

She has played a crucial role in building Zomato, and has witnessed it grow from a small team of 20 people to 4000+, from presence in 3 cities inIndia to presence across 24 countries.

She has managed Business and Regional P&Ls, led Zomato’s central growth strategy and execution, led fundraising and investor relations and worked closely with the founders to drive org culture.

Between 2009-2011 she has also been associated with Bain & Company as senior associate consultant. 

9. Daminee Sawhney, (Head of human resources)

• Remuneration: INR 1.3 Cr
• ESOPs: 783,900

An alumnus of Amity University and London School of Economics, Daminee Sawhney has been associated with Zomato for the past decade as the head of human resources. She became a part of the company on February 1, 2011 to November 11, 2011, and re-joined the company a year later on December 24, 2012. Prior to joining Zomato, she worked with Radisson MBD Hotel.

10. Sandhya Sethia, (Company Secretary and Compliance Officer)

• Remuneration: INR 52 Lakh
• ESOPs: 160,800

Having been associated with the company since January 10, 2019, Sandhya Sethia is currently the company secretary and compliance officer at Zomato. A graduate from Delhi University, Sandhya holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce (honours)and is an associate member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. Prior to joining Zomato, she worked for over six years in different roles with JHS Svendgaard Laboratories Limited, Mideast Integrated Steels Limited and Affle India Private Limited.

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