2022 Year in Review | Who's in, who's out: Biggest executive moves in tech & startups

ETtech has put together its annual list of CXO-level exits and big movements in the startup and tech industry in collaboration with executive search firm Longhouse Consulting.

We have also compiled all the free agents who are looking for new opportunities, and the most significant open positions.

The global tech and startup ecosystem, including in India, saw a rout this year in valuations and investments, resulting in a funding winter. We bring you all the big moves in a sombre year for the technology sector.

Top-level churn at social networking giant Meta’s India unit kicked off towards the end of the year, starting with vice president and managing director-India Ajit Mohan stepping down in November to join rival platform Snap as the president of Asia Pacific region. Mohan will join Snap in February.

This was followed by the exits of WhatsApp’s India head Abhijit Bose and Meta India’s public policy head Rajiv Aggarwal, who quit and joined Samsung India as vice-president public affairs.

WhatsApp Pay’s director and head Manesh Mahatme also left his position in September to join Amazon India as director, product and engineering. Mahatme had joined WhatsApp Pay in April last year from Amazon Pay, where he was a director and board member.

Among other major movements, chief financial officer of omnichannel beauty retailer Nykaa Arvind Agarwal, who saw the company through its bumper IPO, quit and joined fintech major PayU as its India CFO.

Amazon India’s director of grocery, food and health Sameer Khetarpal, who was with the company for nearly seven years, moved on to Jubilant FoodWorks, which runs Domino's Pizza and Dunkin Donuts outlets in India, as CEO.

Food-tech company Zomato, which hit the public markets last year, also saw several exits at the top including that of cofounder Mohit Gupta, head of new initiatives Rahul Ganjoo, and head of intercity delivery service Siddharth Jhawar. While Gupta and Ganjoo are still free agents, Jhawar has joined ad-tech platform Moloco as its India manager.

Meanwhile, Zomato’s rival Swiggy appointed Rohit Kapoor as CEO of its food marketplace starting August. Kapoor joined from Oyo, where he was the global chief marketing officer.

(Illustration and graphics by Rahul Awasthi)