Byju's CFO Ajay Goel quits, to head back to Vedanta to oversee demerger
Byju's said it has made new appointments in its finance function, with Pradip Kanakia as senior adviser and Nitin Golani, currently the President-Finance, who will take charge as India CFO.
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By Chandra R Srikanth
Byju's chief financial officer (CFO) Ajay Goel has quit barely six months after joining the ed tech firm and will head back to his previous company Vedanta, which recently announced a massive demerger plan that splits its business into six different entities.
Goel's departure comes at a crucial time for Byju's, as it is yet to file its results for FY22 (2021-22), apart from its issues with lenders over a billion-dollar loan, even as it tries to raise fresh capital to keep operations going.
Byju's said it has made new appointments in its finance function, with Pradip Kanakia as senior adviser and Nitin Golani, currently the president-finance, taking charge as India CFO.
“I thank the founders and colleagues at Byju’S for helping me assemble the FY22 audit in three months. I appreciate the support received during a short but impactful stint at Byju’s," Goel said. He will transition after completing the formalities of the FY22 audit.
Golani was previously the chief strategy officer at Aakash Education. He played a crucial role in Byju’s $1 billion acquisition of Aakash in 2021 and moved into an operating role at Aakash post-acquisition.
“I am committed to ensuring that Byju’s growth is robust and sustainable. My endeavour now is to maximise shareholder value by optimising financial performance,” Golani said.
Byju's previous CFO PV Rao quit in December 2021 and Goel's appointment came 16 months later, in April this 2023. Goel was previously the group deputy CFO of Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Resources. Before Vedanta, Goel was with Diageo, GE (General Electric), Coca-Cola and Nestle.
Since he took charge, Goel has worked extensively towards putting systems and compliance in place at Byju's. One of the significant moves during his tenure was the departure of Deloitte as auditor. BDO is currently auditing Byju's and is expected to sign off on its FY22 numbers soon.
Byju's is yet to file its FY22 results with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). As regulatory compliance, private companies are required to file their annual results with the MCA by September of that year. Byju's filed its FY21 (2020-21) results nearly 18 months after the financial year ended and reported a surprise decline in its revenue. The company's losses widened manifold to more than Rs 4,500 crore.
Byju's previously said that Goel would be responsible for overseeing financial strategy and management, tasked with working with the founders and the senior leadership on strategy development, capital planning and financial analysis.
Goel's exit comes at a time when Byju's is renegotiating terms with its creditors. It raised a term loan B of $1.2 billion from a clutch of investors in 2021, one of the largest for Indian startups.
Byju's, which is India's most-valued startup, has been under fire since the start of 2022 for a range of issues including accounting irregularities, alleged mis-selling of courses, and mass layoffs.
The company has laid off thousands of employees in the last 12 months as it was hit by a double whammy of drying venture capital funding and slowing demand for online learning services. Since then, its investor board members have left too, citing differences with the founder Byju Raveendran.
It has tried to recoup since then, with Goel's hire and company veteran Arjun Mohan's elevation as CEO. It is also in talks to divest assets such as Great Learning and Epic, apart from raising capital for Aakash.
