Ola Electric names former GE executive Balachandar as chief HR officer

Balachandar is a 33-year HR veteran who was most recently group director at Coffee Day; earlier stints include GE Healthcare and GE Capital, Strides Arcolabs and Stanchart

Ola Electric, the ride-hailing firm's electric vehicle arm, has hired N Balachandar as chief human resources officer. In his new role, Balachandar will accelerate Ola Electric’s journey to becoming a world-class talent organization, with a focus on people and culture globally.

“As we work on driving growth and building a global EV company, we are ramping up our focus on building a world-class people organisation,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, chairman and group CEO, Ola. “Bala’s (Balachandar) over three decades of experience across various consumer-facing segments will help us ensure we rapidly scale up the organisation's structure, capacity, and capability to meet our global growth ambitions”.

Balachandar is a 33-year industry HR veteran and brings global experience to the company. He has worked across India, Europe and Asia with GE Healthcare and GE Capital in several senior HR leadership and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) roles, with Strides Arcolab, with the Standard Chartered Bank and with Asian Paints early in his career. He was most recently as group director with the Coffee Day Group.

“I am excited to join Ola’s mission to transition the world to sustainable mobility,” said Upon N Balachandar, CHRO, Ola Electric. “Having the best talent from around the world is integral to this mission and I look forward to building a global organization that will offer a lifetime of opportunities for employees and enable them to make a difference”.

Balachandar’s appointment comes close on the heels of Wayne Burgess who joined Ola Electric recently as Head of Vehicle Design. Burgess has spent almost three decades designing vehicles for the majority of British premium automotive manufacturers, from Rolls Royce and Bentley in his early career to Aston Martin and Jaguar Landrover to, more recently, Lotus. Notably, he was the chief designer for the Jaguar F-Type sports car, and then studio director for the Jaguar F-Pace SUV.

Ola is gearing up to launch the first in its range of electric scooters in the coming months. Packed with advanced innovations, the much-anticipated Ola Scooter is a tech-driven electric vehicle with industry-leading range and speed. The electric two-wheeler will be priced aggressively to make it accessible to all and will help accelerate India’s transition to sustainable, clean and electric mobility.

The Ola Scooter will roll out from the Ola Futurefactory which is being built at record speed in Tamil Nadu, India. The Ola Futurefactory will be the world’s largest two-wheeler factory when fully operational at 10 million-a-year capacity next year. The factory will start manufacturing the Ola Scooter as soon as its first phase of 2 million annual capacity is ready this summer.