Ezetap co-founder Abhijit Bose to take over as WhatsApp India head

Abhijit Bose, the co-founder of merchant payments platform Ezetap, will take over as the Head of WhatsApp India.

Having co-founded Ezetap in 2011, Abhijit has more than 15 years of experience in building mobile software products. Ezetap was the third mobile product he launched in India.

Previously, Abhijit was Vice President at ngpay and Head of Product for Intuit’s small and medium business offerings. In 2005, he moved to Bengaluru as Siebel Systems' Director for the telecommunications market in the Asia Pacific region. Abhijit has an engineering degree from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In a statement, Abhijit said,

“I’m very proud of what we have built at Ezetap. It has been an amazing professional and personal journey. I’ve been fortunate to work with so many dedicated professionals who believed in our vision to transform payments and have created something special. I am leaving excited that Ezetap has unique capabilities and people that will fuel its continued growth, and that it will reach higher peaks in the coming years.”

Ezetap CFO Byas Nambisan will take over as the interim CEO of the payments company.

In his new role, Abhijit and his team will focus on helping businesses, both large and small, connect with their customers. Earlier this year, WhatsApp had released the WhatsApp Business app for small business owners and the WhatsApp Business API to serve larger businesses that engage with customers at scale. The Facebook subsidiary today has over a million users of WhatsApp business products in India.

Matt Idema, Chief Operating Officer of WhatsApp, said, “WhatsApp is deeply committed to India and we are excited to keep building products that help people connect and support India's fast-growing digital economy. As a successful entrepreneur himself, Abhijit knows what it takes to build meaningful partnerships that can serve businesses across India.”

"WhatsApp is special and can be a major partner for financial inclusion and economic growth in India. It's not only how so many families stay in touch, but increasingly it's how businesses are engaging with their customers. WhatsApp can positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians, allowing them to actively engage and benefit from the new digital economy," Abhijit said.

Abhijit will build WhatsApp's first full country team outside the US, and will be based in Gurgaon.