Ola Group's Senior VP and HR Head N Balachandar Resigns After 3 Years

Ride-hailing platform Ola’s group chief people officer and senior vice president, N. Balachandar, has resigned from his post. Balachandar held the role from May 2021. 

This is as per an Economic Times report. The HR veteran in his role was the HR head for Ola Electric, Krutrim AI, and Ola Cabs, which has now become Ola Consumers. 

At the time of his appointment, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said, “Bala’s over three decades of experience across various consumer-facing segments will help us ensure we rapidly scale up the organization’s structure, capacity, and capability to meet our global growth ambitions.”

Read: Bhavish Aggarwal's 1% Share Pledging Plans: How It Can Help Ola Electric's Expansion?

Balachandar has reportedly started a management consultancy firm of his own. Meanwhile, another person told the Economic Times that Balachandar was close to retiring, and he didn’t want to extend his tenure. 

This comes at a time when the cab aggregator has seen several top-level exits. This includes Ola Consumer’s chief business officer, Sidharth Shakdher. The chief business officer resigned from the firm in October 2024. Shakdher was at the ride-hailing platform for nine months, where he had a wide range of work, including seeing the marketing efforts of Ola, its growth, focus on the consumer loan division, and more. 

Soon after his exit, Shakdher joined fintech platform Paytm as the business head. Another top exit of Ola happened when the business head of Krutrim AI, Ravi Jain, resigned. Since 2021, Jain has been a part of the ride-hailing platform. His roles changed from that of business head of Ola Cars to strategy head of Ola Electric.

Read: Kunal Kamra Stretches Brawl with Bhavish Aggarwal, Calls Ola a “Public Issue”

Another exit of the company was when Ola Cabs CEO Hemant Bakish left the company in April this year. That time, there were also reports that indicated that the company would also layoff 10 percent of its employees. Soon after Bakish’s exit, Bhavish Aggarwal took over as the CEO. 

Ola Electric’s attrition rate has been mostly high. Media reports released in November this year indicate that the company laid off 500 of its employees in a restructuring move. This was done as a part of the restructuring move of the company as per the Mint. A similar restructuring move was taken by the company in April this year, where nearly 10 percent of the staff was impacted. Meanwhile, Ola Consumers has been focusing on its IPO. As per the Arc, the company has also sought the approval of its investors to convert into a public entity.