Chhatwal, Sunil D’Souza join Tata Digital board

Tata Sons has appointed Indian Hotels CEO Puneet Chhatwal and Tata Consumer CEO Sunil D’Souza to Tata Digital’s board as part of a strategy to strengthen the company’s consumer business expertise. This follows the departure of Naveen Tahilyani, who had stepped down as MD and CEO of Tata Digital in May.

Separately, Ankur Verma has been named acting chairman of Croma, the group’s consumer electronics retail chain.

Tata Digital will operate as a board-managed company for now until a CEO is appointed, said people with knowledge of the matter. The appointment has been delayed due to the crisis triggered by the recent Air India crash, they said. Group chairman N Chandrasekaran is closely monitoring both Air India and Tata Digital, they added.

The reshuffle follows feedback that the company had too many finance-focused members and lacked leaders with strong consumer business experience. The addition of Chhatwal and D’Souza is expected to bring significant consumer and commercial depth to the digital business, said the people cited.

“Both have been extremely successful at building their respective consumer businesses and their capabilities at juggling multiple business structures and shareholders will help Tata Digital strengthen their consumer impact,” an executive said.

Aarthi Subramanian recently left the Tata Digital board after being appointed COO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

Tata Sons did not comment on ET’s query.

“Tata Digital currently lacks synergies across formats and the ability to leverage group both in terms of capex and headcount,” a person close to the matter said. “Hopefully, the addition of new members to the board will help address these gaps.”

Another person in the know who spoke on condition of anonymity said, “All the various businesses under Tata Digital are run independently by their CEOs who are oversee for day-to-day operations. They don’t really urgently need a Tata Digital CEO.” Tata Digital’s portfolio companies include online retailer BigBasket, epharmacy 1mg, fashion ecommerce unit Tata Cliq, and electronics retailer Croma.

Tahilyani, who had taken charge as MD and CEO in February last year, abruptly stepped down after just a year, as reported by ET on May 22. He had been tasked with unifying the digital portfolio and fixing the faltering superapp strategy.

Tata Digital had previously relied mostly on internal talent for leadership.

In 2019, Pratik Pal from TCS was brought in to lay the foundations. Tahilyani was appointed to steer the next phase, while Myntra cofounder Mukesh Bansal was the a lone, high-profile external hire in 2021.

Also Read: Exclusive | Mukesh Bansal steps back from daily ops at Tata Neu

Tata Digital, which operates the super app Tata Neu, was repositioned from a centralised superapp to a shared services layer, while independent verticals such as BigBasket, Croma and 1mg retained separate leadership. Chandrasekaran had reportedly grown impatient with Neu’s slow traction.

Tata Digital reported an aggregate gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 37,355 crore in FY24, according to Tata Sons’ annual report, with a user base of 140 million. Yet, adoption has remained limited. Tata Neu accounted for less than 10% of gross sales for BigBasket and 1mg, pointing to weak cross-platform traction. Backend integration was paused to preserve brand identity and the user experience.

To push growth, Tata Digital recently piloted a quick commerce service called Flash, integrated into the Tata Neu app. The initiative aims to tap into the fast-growing, 10-minute delivery segment dominated by Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Zepto.