Story of Zomato COO and CoFounder, Gaurav Gupta from Entry to his Parting

Gaurav Gupta was the Global Head of the Advertising sales of Zomato and was later promoted to the COO position of the company. After 4 years of exceptional contribution towards his work and leading the launch of a wide range of the services of the business, Gaurav Gupta was again elevated to the rank of the Co-founder of Zomato on March 2, 2019. However, after a brief stint of a little more than 2 years as the Co-founder and COO of Zomato, Gaurav Gupta resigned from the company on September 14, 2021.

Quite intriguing isn’t it?

We know you want to know more about Gaurav Gupta, which is why StartupTalky covers the story of Zomato COO and Co-founder, Gaurav Gupta from his entry into the organization to his resignation.

Gaurav Gupta Biography

Gaurav Gupta Before He Joined Zomato

Little is known about Gaurav Gupta’s life before he joined Zomato, but as per his Linkedin profile and a TOI article, Gaurav worked as a consultant at A.T. Kearney for a decade.

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Gaurav Gupta’s Early Days in Zomato

Gaurav joined the organization in 2015 and was the Head of the Supply of Zomato. He was the key person, who led the launch of numerous services that the online food ordering platform currently draws revenue from across a bunch of international markets. Furthermore, Gaurav also launched the table reservation business and was also responsible for scaling it up across India, UAE, and Australia.

Gaurav Gupta not only led the advertising sales of the company globally but also played a significant role in launching Zomato Gold. Gupta played an instrumental role in growing the subscription service of Zomato to one of the fastest-growing of paid membership programs. Furthermore, he had also worked with Zomato’s payments business, registered under Zomato Pay.

Gaurav was then promoted as the COO of the company and thereby, acted as the head of the operations team.

Gaurav Gupta eventually moved from the COO role to lead Zomato's nutrition business. On this Gaurav mentioned via an email saying, “I was anyway not doing this role, and it will be great for all of us if we find someone better than me to do this role,” wrote Gupta.

Gaurav Gupta Promoted as the COO of Zomato

In January 2018, at a time when Zomato was seeing a key shuffle in top management roles, he was elevated from his earlier role of the global head for advertising sales to the COO. As the COO, he was given charge of critical operations including content and new initiatives such as their cloud kitchen module, Zomato Infrastructure Services along with sourcing and reviews on the platform.

Gaurav Gupta as the Co-founder of the Company

In a move that Zomato’s Co-Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal stated as ‘empowerment for the right person', the company’s 38-year-old Chief Operating Officer (COO), Gaurav Gupta was given the title of co-founder. The announcement, which comes as a surprise to many, was made by the company’s CEO Goyal in an internal mail on the 1st of March, 2019. Zomato confirmed the development but declined to share further details.

Deepinder Goyal stated in the mail saying,

This is not a ‘reward’- this is empowerment, for the right person, to seamlessly be able to level-up to a role which he has shown the potential for.” He further mentioned that along with the new title of co-founder, Gupta’s role and title as the COO would still be maintained.

The company then decided to elevate Gaurav Gupta’s position to that of the Co-founder of the company in March 2019.

As part of the employee empowerment policy of Zomato, the company embraced Gaurav Gupta as one of its co-founders.

“We are going to call GG ‘co-founder and COO’, in addition to his COO role,” said the Co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal via an email to its employees.

His services were looked up to by everyone in Zomato and he was even singularly praised by CEO Goyal on a couple of occasions due to the success that Zomato is enjoying through numerous add-ons to its primary food delivery business. These include Zomato Gold, the subscription service of Zomato; Hyperpure (through which Zomato supplies fruits, vegetables, and meat to restaurants); the events unit of the company, Zomaland, and more.

Why is being a Co-founder prestigious and rare in the Startup Ecosystem?

It is one of the rare moments in the startup ecosystem when a company rewards its experienced and executive by conferring them the title of a founding partner. However, it happened with Zomato and Gaurav Gupta.

The ride aggregating giant, OLA is another Indian startup company that encourages its employees in a similar fashion. Pranay Jivrajka, an early employee of Ola had also been given the title of a founding partner in 2017, where a similar thing happened. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ola Foods and a Co-founder of Ola has already taken an exit from the firm in the wake of 2021.

The Exit of Gaurav Gupta

Gaurav Gupta finds his way to exit on September 14, 2021, after two years since his promotion to the position of a Co-founder. The resignation of Gaurav Gupta comes a little more than a year after Pankaj Chaddah had quit the company in March 2020. Pankaj Chaddah co-founded Zomato with Deepinder Goyal in 2008 and had been extensively known as the face of the brand for over a decade.

Zomato has already drawn a conclusion to some of its business lines and subsidiaries, including its grocery delivery service, nutrition and nutraceuticals, along with some of its international subsidiaries.

Gaurav Gupta had sent a heartfelt email on his parting to every one of Zomato where he addressed Zomato Co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal via a special mention. Deepinder also replied to Gaurav promptly in the same email bidding his Co-founder a fitting farewell.

Furthermore, Deepinder also took to Twitter to announce the exit of his co-founder and thanked him for the amazing journey of six long years that they spent together. Here goes his Tweet:

On his resignation, Gaurav Gupta has said that this will be a new turn in his life, and he will be starting a new chapter after he leaves Zomato.

Zomato and the Resignation of its COOs

Gaurav Gupta is not the only COO of Zomato who resigned from the company, nor is he the first of its top-level resignations. Zomato seems to have seen a couple of other resignations too of people working in similar designations.

Pankaj Chaddah was another Zomato personality who donned several hats, among which it is crucial to mention that he was also strikingly the COO of the firm. Deepak Gulati, who had joined Zomato as the President and the Chief Operating Officer of the company had also resigned in September 2017, within six months.

Conclusion

Resignations and struggles are part of every organization and Zomato is not an exception but the ground it gives to its employees to grow as an individual and as a team player is laudable indeed. Zomato is backed by investors like Chinese payment giants Ant Financial (payment affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba), venture capital firm Sequoia and Naukri-owner Info Edge with a valuation of over $2 billion. However, with the competition from companies like Swiggy and a never-ending demand for better service, only time will tell how this move will affect in helping Zomato stay ahead of its competitors.

The Unpredictable Acquisition of Online Food Delivery

“Some battles are better left with honour rather than victory.” 21st January 2020, saw a sweeping acquisition [https://startuptalky.com/tag/acquisition/] which can deftly be called megalithic. Uber Technologies Inc.’s made thedecision to retreat from its food delivery business[https://startuptalky.com/tag/business/…

StartupTalkyYash Gupta

FAQ's

Who is Gaurav Gupta?

Gaurav Gupta is the co-founder of Zomato who was elevated to the role of Co-founder from COO and eventually resigned from the organization on September 14, 2021.

When he joined Zomato?

Gaurav Gupta joined Zomato in 2015 and was working as a global head for advertising sales for Zomato.

What's his current role in Zomato?

Gaurav Gupta is currently leading Zomato's nutrition business.

Who is the founder of Zomato?

Pankaj Chaddah and Deepinder Goyal are the founders of Zomato. Zomato was founded in July 2008.

Who are the co-founders of Zomato at present?

Zomato has four cofounders— Deepinder Goyal, Gunjan Patidar, Gaurav Gupta, Akriti Chopra, and Mohit Gupta.