BharatPe appoints Smriti Handa as Chief Human Resources Officer

New Delhi, April 19, 2021: BharatPe, one of India’s fastest growing Fintech companies, today announced the appointment of Smriti Handa as its new Chief Human Resources Officer. In her new role, Smriti will be working closely with the Senior Leadership Team at BharatPe and will focus on strengthening the organisational culture and HR practices in the company with the objective of building BharatPe as an employer of choice. This is the first key leadership appointment by BharatPe this year.

An alumnus of SRCC, Delhi University and MDI, Gurgaon; Smriti has vast experience across organisations like Reckitt, Philips and Airtel, in global and local roles. Prior to joining BharatPe, Smriti was HR Head, Reckitt Hygiene- SoA before taking over as Global Talent Acquisition Director. Over the years, Smriti has worked closely with Business and HR leadership to create business impact deep-rooted in people, performance & purpose. In all her previous assignments, she is known to deliver passionately on inclusion as well as digitally superior and ownership driven work environment.

Welcoming the new CHRO, Mr. Suhail Sameer, CEO, BharatPe said, “At BharatPe, team is our biggest asset and hence, culture is key for us as we build BharatPe 2.0. With Smriti on board with us to lead the People function, we are looking forward to prepare ourselves for the next level of growth for the brand. Her global experience and diverse skills across the HR domain will help us in building a high performance and employee-centric organisation. With Smriti joining our team, we are confident that she will be able to implement the right processes and programs that will create an environment that attracts, retains and develops high potential talent at BharatPe. I congratulate Smriti on her appointment and wish her all the best for this role.”

Expressing her delight on the new appointment, Smriti Handa, CHRO, BharatPe, said, “I am excited to be foraying into the startup world with a dynamic and evolving brand like BharatPe. My personal conviction about the organisational purpose, business growth trajectory and leadership’s intent to leverage culture to create a long term sustainable business made this an easy decision. Given the company’s journey so far, my immediate focus would be on creating purpose-led leadership and a performance driven culture while retaining the soul and the spirit of this entrepreneurial, fast-paced setup. As we work towards creating a culture where diverse talent flourishes, we would ensure we leverage the power of our internal talent and attract external high potentials to join us to do some of the best work of their life.”

About BharatPe
BharatPe was founded in 2018 with the vision of making financial inclusion a reality for Indian merchants. In 2018, BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code, the first zero MDR payment acceptance service. In 2020, post-Covid, BharatPe also launched India’s only zero MDR card acceptance terminals – BharatSwipe. Currently serving over 80 lakh merchants across 150+ cities, the company is a leader in UPI offline transactions, processing 11 crores+ UPI transactions per month (annualized Transaction Processed Value of US$ 16+ Bn in payments). The company has already facilitated disbursement of loans totalling to over ₹3000 crores to over 300,000 merchants, since launch. BharatPe’s POS business processes payments of over US$ 4 bn annually on its POS machines. It has a network of 1.25 lac+ machines across cities. BharatPe has raised over US$ 650 million in equity and debt, till date. The company’s list of marquee investors includes Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investment Group, Steadfast Capital, Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital. In June 2021, the company announced the acquisition of PAYBACK India, the country’s largest multi-brand loyalty program company with 100 million+ members. In June 2021, it was also given an in-principle approval by Reserve Bank of India to establish a Small Finance Bank, in partnership with Centrum Financial Services Limited (Centrum), the established and profitable NBFC arm of the Centrum Group. In October 2021, the consortium of Centrum Financial Services Limited (Centrum) and BharatPe, was issued a Small Finance Bank (SFB) license by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). BharatPe also made its grand entry in the Buy Now Pay Later segment with the launch of postpe in October 2021.

For more details, please contact:
Akanksha Jain
Head- PR and Communications BharatPe
Email: akanksha@bharatpe.com