Aakash appoints Deepak Mehrotra as MD and CEO

Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL), a subsidiary of embattled edtech startup Byju's, has appointed Deepak Mehrotra as its managing director and chief executive officer.

Mehrotra comes with over 35 years of experience in executive roles in FMCG, telecom, and education industries, the company said in a statement on Monday. 

Prior to joining Aakash, he was the managing director of Ashirvad Pipes. He has also worked with Pearson India, Bharti Airtel, Coca-Cola, and Asian Paints.

Mehrotra has a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Roorkee, an MMS from JBIMS, and has completed an executive program from The Wharton School, Philadelphia (USA).

The appointment of Mehrotra is part of AESL's aim to enhance offerings, and expand its reach, the company said. 

Also Read: Ranjan Pai turned saviour for Aakash; so why are investors upset?

Aakash had set up a committee to appoint a new CEO and a chief financial officer (CFO) in September last year as Abhishek Maheshwari, the former CEO, and Vipan Joshi, former CFO, quit the company after Byju’s issued a legal notice to the founders of Aakash Educational Services. 

The action followed alleged resistance from the Aakash founders to fulfill a share swap agreement that was unconditionally agreed upon as part of the sale of Aakash Educational Services.

“In his role as CEO, he (Mehrotra) will be responsible to deliver on our aggressive growth plan and to build on the significant momentum the company is currently experiencing,” said Byju Raveendran, founder & chairman, Byju's.

Aakash provides coaching solutions to students preparing for medical and engineering entrance examinations, school/board exams, and competitive exams such as NTSE, KVPY, and Olympiads. 

It has a network of over 310 centres (including franchisees) and a student count of more than 400,000.

“I believe India's demographic dividend is for real and we are going to be the ones who will be offering very highly trained, prepared manpower to serve the global economy, which effectively means we are not limited to only the eight lakh engineering seats in India. This suddenly makes it a very, very large market, so there's room for everyone,” Mehrota told Mint while speaking on the rising competition with ed-tech companies like Unacademy, Vedantu, and PhysicsWallah going offline.

In January, the board of Aakash had approved the conversion of business tycoon Ranjan Pai’s $250-300 million debt in Aakash to equity.

In March, Ranjan Pai's MEMG Family Office, initiated arbitration proceedings against Byju for allegedly not repaying its loan through a pre-agreed transfer of shares of its company, Aakash Education, according to a Reuters report.

An arbitrator, appointed under Singapore International Arbitration Centre rules, ordered Byju's not to dispose of 4 million shares of Aaaksh, which as per the loan agreement amounted to a 6% stake last year, according to the April 4 order, the report added.