Rohit Chadda (born 26 August 1982) is an Indian investment banker and entrepreneur, who serves as the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the digital business at

Essel Group Essel Group, (also known as Zee Group) is an Indian multinational conglomerate holding company and corporate promoter headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The company has had business interests in mass media, infrastructure and packag ...

(

Zee Entertainment Zee Entertainment Enterprises (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by Essel Group. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, businesses related to mobile contents, and operates 45 ...

Zee Media ''Zee Media Corporation Limited'' (abbreviated as ZMCL; formerly Zee News Limited) is the news broadcasting company of the Essel Group which is controlled by Subhash Chandra. The company is engaged mainly in the business of broadcasting of news ...

and DNA). He was the co-founder of online food ordering platform

Foodpanda Foodpanda (stylized as foodpanda) is an online food and grocery delivery platform owned by Berlin-based Delivery Hero. Foodpanda operates as the lead brand for Delivery Hero in Asia, with its headquarters in Singapore. It is currently the largest ...

. He is also the founder of omni-channel digital payments platform PayLo. He has been attributed for the turnaround of Zee Digital by bringing the digital business to the second position on ComScore from ninth position making Zee the second largest digital media group in India. He has been featured among Top Tech CEOs of the decade (2010-2020) in India and was featured among Fortune 40 under 40 in 2015.

Education and early career

Chadda graduated from Delhi Technological University (formerly Delhi College of Engineering) with a degree in

computer engineering Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...

and worked as a

software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

for

Computer Sciences Corporation Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) was an American multinational corporation that provided information technology (IT) services and professional services. On April 3, 2017, it merged with the Enterprise Services line of business of HP Ente ...

. In 2007 he joined

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta or IIM-C) is a public business school located in Joka, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was the first Indian Institute of Management to be established, and has been recognized as an Institut ...

to do his MBA after which he worked at

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment bank ...

as an

Investment Banker Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. He took an internal transfer to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in 2011.

Career

Foodpanda

Chadda began his career in 2012 when he co-founded

foodpanda Foodpanda (stylized as foodpanda) is an online food and grocery delivery platform owned by Berlin-based Delivery Hero. Foodpanda operates as the lead brand for Delivery Hero in Asia, with its headquarters in Singapore. It is currently the largest ...

. foodpanda expanded to around 40 countries before being bought by

Delivery Hero Delivery Hero is a German multinational online food-delivery service based in Berlin, Germany. The company operates in 50+ countries internationally in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and partners with 500,000+ restaurants. Deli ...

. Before

got popular, he joked that he delivered pizza for a living. foodpanda had raised a total investment of over US$300 million till 2015. Chadda in the middle of 2015 stepped down from day-to-day responsibilities at Foodpanda to launch his digital payments startup. Foodpanda was acquired by its global competitor Delivery Hero in 2016.

Paylo

In 2015, he launched a omni-channel digital payments platform PayLo which acquired the in-restaurant payments app Ruplee in March 2016 for an undisclosed sum. PayLo was successful in the wake of demonetisation in India and expanded pan-India before being acquired by Immortal Technologies. Chadda believes that execution is more important than the idea to make a startup successful and the key challenge for experienced professionals to work in a startup environment is to unlearn what they have previously learned. PayLo acquired Ruplee before being itself acquired by Immortal Technologies.

Zee Group

Chadda took over as CEO of digital publishing of Zee Group in May 2019. Since 2017, he had led global product and strategy for Zee Group launching

ZEE5 ZEE5 is an Indian subscription video on-demand and over-the-top streaming service, run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages. The ZEE5 mobile app is available on Web, Androi ...

, the flagship OTT of Zee Entertainment, across 170+ countries. Since June 2019, Zee Digital, the online arm of the Zee group, has registered the highest growth year-on-year among the top media publishers in India. Times Internet Limited, Network 18 Group, and India Today Group have grown by 45%, 21%, and 22% respectively from June 2020 over June 2019 while Zee Digital witnessed a growth of 123% over the same period. Zee Digital achieved its first milestone in September 2019 by crossing 100 million unique monthly visitors and was ranked 6th in the news and information category on ComScore India rankings at the time. Later in the month of March 2020 it crossed 150 million unique monthly visitors mark moving to 4th position. Further in May 2020 Zee Digital moved to 3rd position by crossing 185 million unique monthly visitors mark before finally ranking 2nd position in June 2020 in the ComScore rankings among all digital media groups in India. Chadda has led the transformation of the business of Zee Digital by scaling it to over 200 million users from 60 million users making it the second-largest digital media group in India. He attributes the growth from rank 9 to rank 2 in one year to the data and technology driven approach to content and the focus on vernacular languages. During his tenure, Zee Digital launched 8 new brand websites and 3 new languages to expand the product portfolio to 20 brands and 12 languages. During the US elections in November 2020, Zee Digital launched the English global news channel WION through a digital first approach across Asia Pacific, Middle East, UK and North America. Chadda launched Zee's UGC short video platform HiPi in the midst of the TikTok ban in India. Hipi was first launched within

app ecosystem to capitalise on the reach of the OTT platform. After the success of the POC, he launched a standalone app for HiPi. HiPi is a short video platform that provides a complete video creation ecosystem along with news avenues of monetisation to content creators. He plans to use Zee's network reach of 600 million broadcast viewers and 300 million digital users to get creators on HiPi. HiPi launched India's first digital star hunt to allow users to audition for

original shows through the short video platform.

Investing and speaking

Chadda is a mentor at Esselerator, a Startup accelerator by Subhash Chandra Foundation. Esselerator is an initiative by

Subhash Chandra Subhash Chandra Goenka (born 30 November 1950) is an Indian billionaire media baron. He is the chairman of the Essel Group, an Indian media conglomerate and founded Zee TV in 1992. He was also the chairman of Zee Media but resigned as Directo ...

, a billionaire Media baron, to promote and support tech entrepreneurs in domains like Media, Fintech and Education. Its powered by TiE Mumbai. Chadda is an angel investor in multiple technology startups like online school aggregator platform SchoolForSure.com. In 2019, he spoke at DPS to students on starting a business. At the time he remained CEO of Zee group's digital business division.

Philanthropy

Chadda organised a £1 mliion charity bike ride in aid of the

British Asian Trust The British Asian Trust was founded in 2007 by Charles III, King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and a group of pre-eminent British Asian business leaders. The Trust works to tackle the widespread poverty and hardship in South Asia to which mil ...

which saw participation by the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

. Chadda presented the Prince of Wales with a cycling vest, which was said to be for his grandchildren. Chadda supports a non-profit organisatio
Mukkamaar
founded by

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

actress

Ishita Sharma Ishita Sharma (born 8 February 1988) is an Indian actress, kathak dancer, entrepreneur and social activist. She began her acting career with theatre and television while still in school, with children's shows like ''Shaka Laka Boom Boom'', a ...

that works towards fighting crime against women by teaching free

self defence Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in ...

to young girls. He is helping the organisation launch their digital program through a WhatsApp-based chatbot.

Award and recognitions

* Aditya Birla Award for Business Leadership 2007–08, 2008–09 * Professional Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 * Young Food & Grocery Professional of the Year 2014 * Fortune 40 under 40 most influential business leaders list 2015 * Top 25 Most Talented Ecommerce Professionals in India 2015 *Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 *Exemplary Achievement in Corporate World 2020 *Top Tech CEOs of the Decade in India *10 Most Successful Tech CEOs of The Decade *IMPACT Digital Power 100

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chadda, Rohit 1982 births Living people Delhi Technological University alumni Indian Institute of Management Calcutta alumni 20th-century Indian businesspeople Indian chief executives Indian technology chief executives Chief executives in the publishing industry Indian technology businesspeople Chief executives in the media industry