MobiKwik ropes in Saurabh Srivastava as CMO

MobiKwik, a mobile wallet with over 15 million users, has appointed Saurabh Srivastava as chief marketing officer. He has moved from ixigo.com where he was last serving as vice president, marketing and product strategy.

At ixigo, he was responsible for creating brand awareness, driving consumer insights and data to shape new products and building a superior marketing team.

He brings with him 13 years of experience in consumer-centric businesses and has worked with leading consumer and media brands like Goodyear, Maruti Suzuki, Dainik Jagran, GroupM and DDB, in the past.

Bipin Preet Singh, founder and CEO, MobiKwik, says, "Saurabh brings with him the experience of working with a variety of consumer brands both in the physical and online space, and at different stages of their life cycles. His experiences of nurturing and growing brands, ability to understand consumer internet markets and drive data-led consumer insights to achieve brand leadership are skills that will help MobiKwik reach the next level of growth."

Speaking about his new role, Srivastava says, "Mobile wallets are fast becoming the payment instrument of choice for Indians from all walks of life, and MobiKwik is at the forefront of this revolution. This role will give me an opportunity to shape the way Indians look at payments and make mobile wallets a household phenomenon. I am up to the challenge of helping create a consumer internet brand that millions of customers across the country would love."

MobiKwik is making a big offline push this year and has recently entered into a partnership with India's leading retail chain of coffee cafés, Café Coffee Day (CCD), to enable customers make payments through the MobiKwik wallet across all outlets in India.

This is the first serious push that a mobile wallet service has made to enable digital transactions with an offline merchant of the size and scale of Café Coffee Day.

Srivastava has done his Post Graduation in Marketing & Communications from MICA, and holds certificates in Strategic Marketing & Leadership from ISB, Hyderabad, and Diploma in Business Finance from ICFAI, Hyderabad.

MobiKwik recently raised close to $25 million in a Series B round from Tree Line Asia, Cisco Investments, American Express and existing investor, Sequoia Capital. The funds will be used for investments in technology/data analytics, brand building and growing the network of users and merchants.

In 2015, the company aims to create a brick-and-mortar retail network of more than 100,000 merchants across India. These stores will serve both as points for cash loading into the wallet and for wallet payments acceptance.

MobiKwik has over 15 million users and 25,000 merchants (retailers). It enables users to pay in a flash for their mobile recharge and bill payments, to shop on merchants like Café Coffee Day, PVR, Domino's Pizza, Pizza Hut, TastyKhana, JustEat, eBay, Jabong, Snapdeal, ShopClues, HomeShop18, Naaptol, Pepperfry, Fashionara, FashionAndYou, MakeMyTrip and BookMyShow, and to send and receive money from friends.