WhiteHat Jr CEO Ananya Tripathi quits in another top-level exit at Byju's

Tripathi, who has been on maternity leave since May, has decided to quit. However, Byju's is yet to formally acknowledge her resignation

Ananya Tripathi, the chief executive officer (CEO) of WhiteHat Jr – the beleaguered subsidiary of Byju’s – has tendered her resignation, sources said on Wednesday, as the string of top level exits continued at the troubled education technology major.

Tripathi, who was on maternity leave since May this year, has decided to quit. Byju’s is yet to formally acknowledge her resignation and is actively attempting to convince her to reconsider, reports said.

Tripathi, a former chief strategy officer at Myntra, was appointed WhiteHat Jr CEO in April 2022.

Queries sent to Byju’s did not elicit an immediate response.

It comes a day after Byju’s chief business officer Prathyusha Agarwal, Himanshu Bajaj, business head of Byju's tuition centres, and Mukut Deepak, business head for Class 4 to 10, resigned at a time when the company was trying to address challenges such as due diligence issues, legal battles with lenders, and markdowns in its valuation by investors.

In 2020, WhiteHat Jr founder Karan Bajaj sold his 18-month-old coding start-up to Byju’s founder and chief executive officer Byju Raveendran for $300 million in an all-cash deal. Bajaj continued to lead and scale this business in India and the US.

Since then, WhiteHat Jr has been embroiled in a spate of controversies. These include misleading advertising, layoffs, not being able to fix its high customer acquisition costs, and the exit of its founder.

In August 2021, Bajaj decided to move on from the company, which had, at that time, grown to a team of over 17,000 employees and teachers in multiple countries around the world, from India, Australia and UK to US and Latin America.

Byju’s posted losses of Rs 4,588 crore in FY21, 19 times more than the preceding year, according to the latest available financial report. WhiteHat Jr reportedly contributed 26.73 per cent to the total loss.

Byju’s CEO Byju Raveendran referred to WhiteHat Jr as an "under-performer" compared to other acquired companies, with future growth likely to involve high cash burn.

The subsidiary was also involved in a legal battle.

In May 2021, WhiteHat Jr withdrew the Rs 20-crore defamation suit it filed against software engineer Pradeep Poonia. The lawsuit was filed in November 2020 at the Delhi High Court (HC).