Paytm appoints ex-Citigroup executive Madhur Deora as Chief Financial Officer

India's largest mobile payment and commerce company Paytm has announced the appointment of Madhur Deora as its Chief Financial officer (CFO) and Senior Vice President.

Formerly with Citigroup Investment Banking as Managing Director, Madhur brings experience in identifying new opportunities for emerging businesses and contributing to their growth.

At Paytm he will also be responsible for building and managing the company's newly formed financial services business.

Madhur has over 17 years of investment banking experience, most recently as Managing Director in Mumbai, handling Citi's TMT and Private equity clients. An Economics student from Wharton School, he has led several important transactions in the internet space. In 2015, he also led the fund-raising discussions for Paytm with Ant Financial.

"Madhur has been a long-term friend and partner of Paytm. I am extremely happy to welcome him onboard. His expertise will help us to build our newly formed financial services business into one of the largest from India," said Founder and CEO Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

"I am looking forward to my journey with Paytm. This is going to be a phenomenal learning experience for me. I have great respect for what the company is building and look forward to using my experience and skills to further support this incredible growth," said Madhur Deora.

His appointment comes at a crucial time for Paytm as the company continues to witness incredible growth across sectors. One of the first Indian companies to drive O2O (Offline-to-Online) commerce, Paytm now does more offline transactions than online, while online recharges now constitutes less than 20 percent of its total business.

As an Indian company that believes in building its own technology and software, this move is in line with Paytm's vision of building India's first USD 100-billion firm and bringing half a billion Indians into the mainstream economy.