WhatsApp Pay India Head Quits After Four Months Of Taking Charge Joining the exit bandwagon, Vinay Choletti's announcement leaves WhatsApp Pay India without a guiding force
By Paromita Gupta •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
On Wednesday, Vinay Choletti, WhatsApp head for payments division in India, took to Linkedin to announce his departure from the instant messaging giant.
Calling WhatsApp a critical lifeline for India, Choletti shared how he was humbled to see WhatsApp Pay be adopted by customers for novel use cases and that these will be the badges he'll proudly wear in his lifetime.
An alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad, Choletti joined WhatsApp in October 2021 as head of merchant payments, exiting Amazon after over seven years of association as head of SMB payments at its payment division. On November 1, WhatsApp rolled out a new feature which lets Bangalore citizens buy Namma Metro tickets at a 5 per cent discount on base ticket fare by simply messaging a 'hi' to +91 81055 56677.
The feature lets travelers skip long metro lines, allowing them to purchase transit tickets for one-way, recharge metro passes, view schedule, and check updated fares. The chatbot also allows you to cancel your ticket.
Choletti took over the reins from Manesh Mahatme, who left the Meta-owned application to join former employer Amazon India as a full-time director of product and engineering.
Choletti and Mahatme's exit comes at a crucial time for WhatsApp Pay, which won the mandate to extend its user base from 40 million to 100 million in April 2022.
His exit comes at the time when India is facing a mass-exodus of top-executives. WhatsApp is yet to release a official statement on his exit.
