Uber adds three big names to its top level management

With no more competition on the China front, as expected Uber is now pouring in immense resources in India to ramp up its management team. The American ride-hailing service is bulking up its business development, engineering and communication teams to take on the local cab-service provider Ola.

Recently, there were reports that the company is planning to hire 150 people in next few months for its Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad. Making a move in the same direction, last month, Uber hired Apurva Dalal to head the company’s engineering team in India. He is the ex-CTO of online furniture e-commerce store Urban Ladder and is currently working on building a team in Bengaluru.

The second addition to the team is Mahesh Bhalla, the President of online gifting startup, Qwikcilver who will head the business development of the cab-hailing service in India. Uber has also roped in Abhishek Mahapatra to lead the communications team for the India operations. He has moved from Ford Motors in Shanghai to join the team in India.

Uber has been adopting a very aggressive approach in India. Within a year, Uber has quadrupled its workforce in the country from a meager hundred plus employees to over six hundred. Recently, the company has also revealed its plans to take that number to 1000 by the end of this year.

Last year, Uber had committed an investment of $1 billion in India to expand its services. Earlier this year, it topped that amount with an additional $500 million for expansion and partnerships. This underlines CEO Travis Kalanick’s commitment at beating Ola (who’s adopted the former’s business model) at its own game and becoming the biggest taxi-aggregator in the country.