ISN Exclusive: Peak XV Partners’ HR Director Anirudh Mullick to quit

Anirudh Mullick, Director of human resource (HR) at Peak XV Partners, is stepping down from the company, sources in the know told IndianStartupNews (ISN). Mullick, who joined in 2010, was promoted from Vice President (VP) and became a key person at the firm. In fact, he was the first hire in the human capital team.

Mullick reported to Peak XV Partners’ Chief People Officer, Saipriya Sarangan. A source also said that it is likely that he will start his own Human Capital consulting venture after a successful tenure with Peak XV Partners.

Mullick, who has spent over 14 years with the company, is now part of an increasing list of top-level executives who have left the investment firm.

He is the latest to quit after ISN exclusively reported that Gayatri Yadav, the company’s chief marketing officer (CMO), was quitting Peak XV Partners. Prior to Yadav, Managing Director (MD) Piyush Gupta and Surge Partner Anandamoy Roychowdhary had also quit the company, as per various reports.

Similarly, the company’s Chief Public Policy and Communications Officer, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, had also departed from the company to start her own firm. Mullick, Yadav, Gupta and Roychowdhary have all exited Peak XV Partners in a span of 12-15 months.

Mullick, who has hired top talent and helped Peak XV Partners nurture talent, is leaving after over 14 years at the company. “I lead a team of talent specialists who hire needle-moving professionals for Sequoia-backed companies in India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA),” says Mullick on his LinkedIn profile.

He has also helped portfolio companies hire top talent and roped in human capital for them, as per his profile. At Peak XV Partners, he helped their companies in CXO hiring, recruiting board members and also in identifying key engineering and product leaders.

“While MNCs often hire clones, startups hire company builders and hyper-growth leaders. I saw how a single leader could change the trajectory of a company. I saw how dreams converted to reality, and reality into massive companies,” he adds on the company page.

Prior to joining Peak XV Partners in 2010 – when it was called Sequoia India - Mullick was at Executive Access for over seven years between 2003 and 2010. Peak XV Partners chose not to reply to ISN’s queries. More recently, Peak XV Partners had also returned around $465 million of capital to its investors as it chose to reduce its fund’s size and become more selective with its investments, media reports had said in October.

While there have been several high profile exits, Peak XV Partners’ investment team has been immune from exits in the investing teams, which works well for the firm as it looks to back more promising founders. The company is even hiring for roles that are a little junior as it doubles down on the startup space.

As per recent reports, Peak XV has hired Rishen Kapoor, a former employee, who had left to build Toplyne, a SaaS platform. The company however shut shop and returned money to investors such as Tiger Global and others in October 2024.