BharatPe appoints former Paytm executive Ajit Kumar as CTO ahead of planned IPO

IPO-bound fintech major BharatPe has appointed Ajit Kumar, former Senior Vice President of Engineering at Paytm, as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO), marking another key addition to its leadership team ahead of its public listing plans.

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The company said Kumar will lead BharatPe’s technology strategy, product scalability, and innovation across its payments and lending platforms. A veteran with nearly two decades of experience, Kumar has previously worked at Snapdeal (through Shopo), Times Internet, SAP Labs India, and xAd Inc.

Before joining BharatPe, Kumar spent close to nine years at Paytm, where he oversaw engineering operations in the fintech domain. 

Kumar’s appointment comes about five months after former CTO Pankaj Goel resigned for personal reasons and later joined LeadSquared as CTO. His exit was part of a broader leadership reshuffle at BharatPe. In recent months, Chief Marketing Officer Parth Joshi, Chief Human Resources Officer Smriti Handa, and Chief Data Scientist Ritesh Mohan Srivastava have also stepped down to pursue other opportunities.

Following the departures, the company initiated a leadership realignment to strengthen focus on key business units. Sandeep Indurkar, previously Chief Business Officer, now leads BharatPe’s payments vertical; Kohinoor Biswas oversees its consumer business; and Rijish Raghavan heads the point-of-sale (PoS) device segment. All three report directly to CEO Nalin Negi.

BharatPe, which provides financial and digital payment services to merchants, is reportedly targeting a public listing by FY27.

For FY25, BharatPe posted an adjusted PBT of Rs 6 crore (excluding ESOP expenses), compared with a loss of Rs 342 crore in FY24. Total revenue for the year was Rs 1,734 crore, supported by growth across business segments.