Avanti Finance Private Limited has announced the appointment of Rahul Gupta as the Chief Executive Officer. The Founders of Avanti Finance are Ratan N Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Dr. Vijay Kelkar and R Venkataramanan.
Avanti has been conceived as a financial inclusion model with a mission to provide timely, affordable credit to the unserved and under-served segments leveraging new age digital technologies. The funding for Avanti has come from the personal philanthropic capital of Tata and Nilekani, and their returns will be redeployed into philanthropy. Avanti’s objective carries forward the goals of the Tata Trusts in striving for socio-economic development in the hinterlands of the country for the last 126 years.
The Avanti platform leverages India’s digital infrastructure, and will partner with social sector players and community organisations. It has begun pilots in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The target is to begin full-scale operations in the first half of 2019, bringing the experience, access and options which top-end customers get with FIs to resource-poor sections, with a goal to serve 100 million households in the next five years.
Rahul Gupta, who joins from General Electric, brings two decades’ experience, of that 15 years in GE Money, with deep expertise in consumer lending in both emerging and mature markets. He was President & CEO of GE Money in Singapore and Hong Kong, and Chief Marketing Officer of GE Money India. His most recent assignment was Managing Director and Head of Business Development for the full suite of GE’s businesses for the 10 countries of the ASEAN region. In this role, he will be based in Bengaluru, India.
Commenting on the appointment, Ratan N Tata said, “Rahul possesses the experience of leading consumer finance both in India and developed countries. He is ideally suited to lead the Avanti team to bring to consumers at the base of the pyramid the access that the privileged enjoy.”
“Rahul will play a key role in scaling the operations of Avanti Finance. His understanding of consumer and financial services and of managing large business portfolios in different geographies will be crucial in achieving the founder’s dream of making affordable financial services available to millions of Indians who have so far been excluded from the formal financial system”, said Nandan Nilekani.
