Rohit Chadda is an investment banker turned business leader with two successful exits behind him. He has extensive global experience across e-commerce, OTT, fin-tech, payments and media & entertainment industries. He is currently leading the digital publishing business at Zee group (Zee Entertainment, Zee Media and DNA) with a portfolio of 20 brands across 12 languages covering content in News, Finance, Entertainment, Healthcare, Sports and Technology. Out of the portfolio, 8 brands and 3 languages were launched by him within the last financial year itself i.e. FY2019-20.
He launched ZEE5, the flagship OTT of Zee Entertainment, across 170+ countries covering market entry, distribution strategy, content strategy, subscription & monetisation strategy, product & payments strategy and legal/compliance for all markets. He was managing the fin-tech business of Essel Finance (financial services business of Zee group) covering insurance aggregation, mutual funds and personal finance before it was sold by the group in 2019. He is building the future of Zee Digital on the four pillars of hyperlocal, social, content based commerce and user generated content focussing on Asia Pacific, Middle East and North American markets.
Rohit Chadda has received various awards through his professional career. He was named Fortune 40 under 40 in 2015 and was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 by Associated Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCHAM). His other accolades include Young Professional of the Year by Asia Retail Congress 2014, Top 25 e-commerce professionals in 2015 and Professional Entrepreneur of the Year 2014.
His first successful venture was foodpanda.com, the world’s largest food ordering platform. He introduced online food delivery in emerging markets when the category was virtually non-existent and was responsible for developing the category to one of the fastest growing ecommerce verticals in the World. Foodpanda expanded to 40+ countries before being bought by its global competitor Delivery Hero.
After the success of foodpanda, he founded fintech startup PayLo in order to solve the lack of payment acceptance infrastructure in emerging markets. In Feb 2016, PayLo acquired Ruplee, India’s largest dining payments app to launch its first omni-channel payments platform PayLo POS which was tremendously successful in the wake of demonetisation in India. PayLo expanded successfully pan-India before being acquired by Immortal Technologies.
Rohit Chadda works with various technology and old economy businesses consulting them on their digital strategy, growth strategy and new market entry. As an angel investor and mentor, he works with multiple startups from concept to launch to growth. With a special interest in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, he keenly works with startups in the various applications of the technology.
He has been featured by Forbes, Fortune, The Economic Times, Business Standard, CNBC and various other newspapers/magazines has been featured on various entrepreneurship and startup shows on TV channels like CNBC TV18 Young Turks, CNBC Awaaz entrepreneur. Rohit Chadda speaks on various subjects like digital payments, retail, ecommerce, venture capital, consumer technology, food tech & entrepreneurship at various forums worldwide.
This website is an endeavour to share what Rohit Chadda has learnt over the years and help professionals, budding entrepreneurs and students to learn about digital business and make career decisions that enable them to grow in the digital economy.
Education
Rohit Chadda did his masters in management (PGDM) from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta) and was awarded 100% merit scholarship sponsored by Aditya Birla Group for both years of his education. Only ten students across all IIMs are awarded this scholarship and Rohit was among only three students across IIMs who were awarded the scholarship for both years. Prior to his management degree, Rohit did his computer engineering from Delhi College of Engineering (now Delhi Technology University).
Follow me