WhiteHat Jr Strengthens Leadership Team; Onboards Industry Veterans

Leading edtech startup WhiteHat Jr has announced the expansion of its senior leadership team comprising industry veterans and experts from diverse business backgrounds. The new additions to the leadership team follow WhiteHat Jr’s foray into key global markets, including the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

The company has onboarded Trupti Mukker, the former Global Business Head for Banking & FS Ops at Wipro, who has joined as Head of Customer Experience; Balaji Ramanujam, an IIM-Bangalore and IIT-Madras alumnus with strong innovation and edtech entrepreneurship experience, as Head of Curriculum and Learning Experience; Vishnu Dutt Sharma, former CEO of Vidya Mandir Classes as Head of Global Business, and Hemant Sachetee, former Vice President HFCL Group as the Chief Financial Officer.

The leadership team also includes seasoned executives such as COO - Ankur Nyati, the former Head of Operations Ola UK; B2B Head - Nitin Kochhar, the former COO of Hero Electronix, with strong experience of leading multiple businesses in startup space with stints at Flipkart, Rivigo and Shopclues. Global Head of Brand Marketing - Vednarayan Sirdeshpande who has been associated with global brands like Mondelez, Amazon and Discovery Inc; Global Head of Communications and External Affairs - Sameer Bajaj who has led communication mandates for marquee brands such as Star Sports, Amway and Discovery Inc; and Global Head of Growth Marketing - Burhanuddin Pithawala who was formerly in-charge of Global Marketing and Growth at OYO Hotels.

The entire core leadership portfolio will work closely with Founder and CEO Karan Bajaj to deliver the vision of delivering personalized, live learning with individualized outcomes for every child. In line with this, WhiteHat Jr has also committed to expanding its highly trained and qualified women-only teacher workforce, currently 11,000 strong, to 100,000 in the next three years to deliver its proprietary, creative activity-based, age-appropriate curriculum to fuel growth and expansion across geographies.

Speaking on the appointments, WhiteHat Jr Founder and CEO Karan Bajaj said, “WhiteHat Jr has grown rapidly from being just a concept two years ago to celebrating the joy of kids creativity in multiple countries across the world. We’re excited to continue onboarding a team of highlyexperienced, seasoned business leaders with deep passion for education to build strong systems and structures for future growth.”

Some of the prominent new leaders joining WhiteHat Jr are:

TRUPTI MUKKER, HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE & OPERATIONS

Trupti, in her previous role as the Global Head for Banking & FS Ops at Wipro, grew the business and led a team of over 10,000 associates across Asia, USA, LATAM and Europe. Under her leadership, the business came to be recognized by analysts as a benchmark in Customer Experience and Digital Operations in a highly regulated industry. A founding member of a skill development start-up, Trupti has worked closely with NASSCOM, NSDC and several state governments in India, and facilitated the upskilling of more than 15,000 learners across J&K, West Bengal and Maharashtra. She is also a certified GE six sigma black belt and an IIM-B alumnus.

BALAJI RAMANUJAM, HEAD OF CURRICULUM & LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Balaji is a Computer Science & Engineering graduate from IIT-Madras and an IIM-Bangalore alumnus. He built a career over two decades driving innovation at some of the World's top companies - Procter & Gamble, Energizer & 3M Technologies, across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He brings deep relevant experience as an ed-tech entrepreneur who has spent the last few years working on the problem of how to help children stay creative and imaginative, so that they grow up to be creators, inventors and original thinkers. He is a passionate life-long learner and volunteers as a football coach for kids in his spare time.

VISHNU DUTT SHARMA, HEAD OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

Former CEO of Vidya Mandir Classes (VMC), Vishnu comes with a wealth of experience in the education and start-up sector. Under his leadership, VMC rapidly expanded its national footprint, and launched & scaled a profitable online Test Prep teaching model for IIT JEE, NEET and other K-12 competition tests like Olympiads, NTSE etc. Prior to VMC, Vishnu was co-founder and CEO at Fliplearn, where he helped build a world class platform, delivering personalized education for K-12 students, reaching out to 3.3 million users across 3000+ Schools. Vishnu also has experience working with major startups like the Myntra and Flipkart group, and has worked as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group working on assignments spanning strategy and execution excellence.

HEMANT SACHETEE, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

Former Vice President – Corporate with HFCL Group, Hemant brings with him rich experience spanning over two decades across finance, investment banking, performance monitoring, strategy & planning, systems & processes, special projects, investor relation, internal audit etc. In various investee companies and projects, he has successfully built, scaled and managed multiple teams and functions. A qualified chartered accountant, Hemant has led various fund raising initiatives and has implemented effective systems, processes and controls with proper reporting mechanism for vouching propriety of affairs.