Introduction

India’s first full-stack financial solutions company, Razorpay has grown from being a payment gateway to a solutions-driven organisation that boasts an extensive product suite to accept and disburse payments and raise capital and park money. Founded in 2014, Razorpay has grown from being a payment gateway provider to a leading full-stack financial services company with an extensive product suite for businesses to manage their financial infrastructure. The company looks to adopt a holistic approach by integrating technology into the organization’s business processes. 

Founded by alumni of IIT Roorkee, Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, Razorpay is the second Indian company to be a part of Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator, Y Combinator. Marquee investors such as Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Y Combinator and MasterCard have invested a total of $741.5 Mn through Series A, B, C, D, E & F funding. A few angel investors have also invested in Razorpay’s mission to simplify payments and banking and redefine how finance works in India.

Problem Statement 

Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder and CTO managed the technology vertical at Razorpay, with the expansion and newer additions to the existing structure, the company was looking for a seasoned techie to join the team as the Senior Vice President of Engineering. As the SVP of Engineering, the designated leader would be responsible for managing the teams, translating business strategy into engineering requirements and focusing on the scalability of the products.

Solution and Execution

Purple Quarter with Razorpay devised a custom approach to map and locate the ideal fit for the mandate. Purple Quarter on the mandate took an unconventional approach of finding a candidate that would fill in the shoes of a Chief Technology Officer eventually taking the engineering burden off of Shashank, directing his expertise and leadership role more towards the business. This approach came as a surprise to Razorpay as they were looking out for a comparatively less senior role. Following detailed discussions, the management went ahead with appointing a C-Suite Leader in June 2022. 

It was essential to look for a leader who has handled large teams in the past, and had a 360-degree experience with technology, engineering, product, program, data science and people. By the profiling of Purple Quarter’s BMM, the best-suited candidate would be a Transformer with the mindset of a Creator. After thorough detailing and mapping of candidates across companies, Purple Quarter helped close the mandate with a seasoned technologist - Murali Brahmadesam. He proved to be the best match for the mandate, he is an expat who has managed 600+ team sizes in his recent stint. The seasoned technologist has successfully led and managed multiple teams during his tenure. At Amazon, Murali built and managed products such as Aurora database engines (MySQL/PostgreSQL) from the ground up. Murali was identified as the perfect profile fitment of a creator with a product mindset - an ideal find for leading tech at Razorpay. He comes with the right organizational-cultural- technology fit. With expertise in technology, engineering background, product know-how, programming, and data science, Murali is also a people-oriented individual. Murali is undoubtedly the right person at the right time. 

Looking Forward 

Purple Quarter identified a role that helped bridge the gap between tech leaders and the tech team by identifying and locating Murali as the Chief Technology Officer for Razorpay. The organization is expanding its product avenues and with Murali on the team, Razorpay is further integrating technology into its business models. Technology and engineering integration are of paramount importance in keeping ahead of the competition. It is only a matter of time before Murali takes the team and the tech vertical of Razorpay to new heights. Purple Quarter is pleased to have rightly believed in Murali being the best fit for the tech-leadership role. 

For more information, please reach out to the Marketing Team.