Ola Cabs appoints new heads for design, HR

Sunit Singh is vice-president for design and Yugantar Saikia is the vice-president for human resources

Online taxi and auto rickshaw aggregator Ola Cabs has strengthened its leadership team by bringing on board Sunit Singh, the former design head of Cleartrip, as its vice-president for design, and Yugantar Saikia, a former senior executive of California-based software company FICO, as its vice-president for human resources.

“Saikia’s experience of defining and scaling people functions for over a decade is very valuable for Ola at this point in time,” Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ola Cabs said. “Singh is undoubtedly one of the finest designers in our country and his expertise will go a long way in creating an amazing user experience for drivers and consumers on the Ola platform.”

Founded in January 2011 by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola Cabs has been growing rapidly over the last few months and now has presence in 67 cities. The company has said it plans to hire at least 200 employees by March 2015.

In his new role, Singh will work toward building a world-class product for Ola Cabs that would provide improved personal transportation experience to users and be able to scale rapidly. Saikia will be responsible for making Ola Cabs as a preferred workplace for top talent in India.

In his earlier role, Singh was responsible for user experience of products at Cleartrip, and was instrumental in setting the tone for mobile products. Cleartrip’s mobile app, which was headed by Singh, was listed among the best apps for 2014 on Apple’s iOS store. Prior to Cleartrip, he has led design at Burrp! and Paper Plane.

With over 16 years of experience, Saikia has earlier worked at American Express and Ernst & Young. He has led India operations for his previous employer, FICO, where he managed large mergers and acquisitions integration.