Dial reset, again: Tatas in talks to bring external CEO to lead Tata Digital

Tata Digital, the owner of the Tata Neu superapp, is set to appoint an external CEO, the third chief to come on board since the inception of the platform in 2019, said people in the know.

The move follows scale-up issues hampering business growth at the ecommerce entity of the Tata Group, said a person aware of the development. Tata Digital's former CEO Naveen Tahiliyani, who had moved from Tata AIA in March 2024, exited abruptly in July within a year of his term. His exit was triggered by growing tensions over strategic direction and performance of the platform.

The new top executive will have a clear mandate of overhauling the organisation, streamlining operations, and infusing tighter alignment across the group's consumer digital portfolio comprising grocery delivery firm BigBasket, epharmacy Tata 1mg, retailer Croma, and lifestyle etailer Tata Cliq.


The appointment of an external CEO would mark a shift in strategy for Tata Digital after having relied solely on internal leadership over the past few years.

Myntra cofounder Mukesh Bansal was the first major outside leadership hiring, joining Tata Digital in 2021 as its president. Bansal left the group two years later.

The leadership reset is being planned amid a broader shakeup led by Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran, who has temporarily stepped in to take direct charge of Tata Digital.

Insiders said Chandrasekaran is "cracking the whip" on underperforming management and has issued marching orders to fix delivery gaps and end strategic drift.

Weekly reviews are currently held to monitor verticals such as BigBasket, Croma, and Tata Cliq, with clear consequences for non-performance. "The message is unambiguous-either deliver or step aside," a second person said.

"There's been enough experimentation," the chairman told senior executives, according to the people cited above. "Now is the time to fix execution issues, eliminate redundancies, and focus on profitability."

Another person said the hunt is for a CEO "who can get Tata Digital into shape."

Tata Digital did not respond to ET's queries.

In the interim, a committee of senior Tata Digital CXOs including Gaurav Hazrati, Hardeep Singh Guru, Seshadri Venkateshwaran, Vinay Vaidya, Satyam Mehra, and Abhimanyu Lal has been overseeing day-to-day management and coordination across verticals.

Tata Sons has strengthened Tata Digital's board by inducting Indian Hotels CEO Puneet Chhatwal and Tata Consumer CEO Sunil D'Souza to bolster consumer business depth, as reported by ET.

Ankur Verma has been named acting chairman of Croma, reflecting the group's desire to impose tighter operational discipline. Chandrasekaran, people in the know said, has been critical of the lack of synergies among verticals, especially BigBasket and Tata Cliq.

Meanwhile, Tata Digital is also reworking the Tata Neu app's profile to position it as a multi-category rather than a grocery-first one, a move seen as being "painful but necessary" to stay relevant in a market increasingly dominated by quick commerce firms like Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart.