byteXL strengthens leadership team to fuel AI and skilling push

Talent transformation and skilling company byteXL has appointed four senior leaders: Venkata Reddy Gunnam as chief operating officer (COO), Anirban Tarafdar as chief business officer (CBO), Alekhya Reddy Kommuru as chief of staff and Tej Anumas as head of finance, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

The appointments will support the company’s evolution into a deep-tech-focused organisation, strengthen its ability to address industry talent gaps, and accelerate its plans to expand its institutional network from 40 to 120 institutions and reach 500,000 students over the next 2 years, byteXL said.

As part of its next phase of growth, byteXL has begun developing programmes and curricula to prepare students for emerging talent requirements across Global Capability Centres (GCCs), AI, electric vehicles (EVs), semiconductors and precision engineering. The company will draw on the new leadership team's experience across technology, business scaling and commercial strategy to strengthen these initiatives and align its skilling offerings with the needs of these high-growth sectors.


Venkata Reddy Gunnam, COO, brings two decades of experience across business operations, P&L leadership, go-to-market strategy and organisational scaling. An alumnus of BITS Pilani, he has held leadership roles at Deque Systems, Darwinbox, HighRadius and OYO. At byteXL, he will focus on strengthening operational capabilities, improving execution and supporting the company’s expansion.

Anirban Tarafdar, chief business officer, has close to two decades of experience spanning commercial leadership, enterprise transformation, product and technology, and business building. An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, he has held senior leadership positions at the RPSG Group, Goodera, Swiggy, Ola, Myntra and the Tata Group. He will drive business growth, expand market opportunities and align byteXL’s offerings with the evolving requirements of educational institutions and industry.

Alekhya Reddy Kommuru, Chief of Staff, brings experience across technology, product development, data engineering and strategic execution. She holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Madras. At Amazon & Microsoft, she worked on AI-powered behavioural discovery and personalisation strategy for Amazon Books. Her experience aligns with byteXL’s focus on AI-driven learning, assessment, student analytics and personalised learning. At byteXL, she will support strategic planning, cross-functional alignment and execution of key business priorities.

Tej Anumas, Head of Finance, is a Chartered Accountant with over a decade of experience across finance leadership, fundraising, complex transaction structuring and strategic business finance. He has held roles at Red Health and Happilo. At byteXL, he will work closely with the founders on financial strategy, business planning and the financial infrastructure required to support the company’s next phase of growth.

Karun Tadepalli, Co-founder and CEO of byteXL, said, “Our next phase of growth calls for a stronger focus on deep technology, operational excellence and industry-aligned talent development. These appointments bring the leadership capabilities needed to scale our institutional network, strengthen our technology platform and address the evolving talent requirements of industry. As we expand our reach, our focus remains on making engineering talent more industry-ready through practical, technology-led learning.”

Founded by brothers Karun and Sricharan Tadepalli, byteXL partners with engineering colleges to integrate industry-relevant technology and AI learning into academic programmes. The leadership expansion follows byteXL’s $9 million funding round led by Elevar Equity, with participation from existing investors Kalaari Capital and The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. With this latest round, byteXL has raised $16 million in funding to date.