Ola appoints Rakesh Bhardwaj as Group CIO to lead company's IT initiatives

Mobility Startup Ola has announced the appointment of Rakesh Bhardwaj as Group Chief Information Officer. In this role, Rakesh will provide strategic direction to the group's IT initiatives. He will cover information systems, tools, security, IT infrastructure and assets across Ola’s global operations and businesses.

Rakesh’s appointment comes close on the heels of several other recent leadership hires at Ola. This includes N Balachandar as Ola Electric CHRO and Wayne Burgess as Ola Electric’s Head of Design last week. The group further looks to rapidly build its global leadership team to drive the next phase of growth across all its business verticals globally.

About Rakesh Bhardwaj

Rakesh brings nearly three decades of experience to Ola. He has built and managed global IT teams and systems for some of the largest enterprises in the world. Before Ola, he held several leadership roles including being the Global CIO for Cognizant; CIO for GE Healthcare; CIO for GE Aviation and Transportation.

Commenting on the appointment, Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman and Group CEO welcomed Rakesh in a statement. He said, “As Ola scales up further and expands into new areas such as connected manufacturing, intelligent charging infrastructure, and a sophisticated global supply chain, having a robust IT infrastructure enabling this growth is imperative. Rakesh’s expertise in building solid technology systems and processes across a diverse set of large organisations will be instrumental in building the technology backbone that will power this growth across our businesses.”

Upon taking charge in his new role, Rakesh Bhardwaj, Group CIO, Ola said, “Ola’s mission to transition the world to sustainable mobility is compelling. It is a great opportunity to be able to contribute to this mission by building a global IT enterprise, the backbone for any high-growth tech company. I am looking forward to working with businesses to help deliver growth and superior customer experiences through world-class operational efficiencies.”

Ola FutureFactory

Ola is gearing up to launch the first in its range of electric scooters in the coming months. Packed with advanced innovations, Scooter is a tech-driven electric vehicle with industry-leading range and speed. It will also offer customers best-in-class performance and experience. The electric two-wheeler will be priced aggressively to make it accessible to all. The company also aims to help accelerate India’s transition to sustainable, clean and electric mobility.

The Ola Scooter will roll out from the Futurefactory in Tamil Nadu, India. The Futurefactory will be the world’s largest two-wheeler factory when fully operational at 10 million-a-year capacity next year. The factory will start manufacturing the Ola Scooter in its first phase with a 2 million annual capacity this summer. Thus, Ola’s FutureFactory will create 10,000 jobs and serve as the company’s global manufacturing hub for both India and international markets across Europe, UK, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.

The mega-factory is also expected to be the country’s most automated, with about 5,000 robots and automated guided vehicles in use once the factory is fully operational to its full capacity.