Ola Electric Ropes in Former GE Executive Balachandar as Chief HR Officer

Ola Electric names N Balachandar as its chief human resources officer. In his new role, Balachandar is expected to accelerate Ola Electric’s journey to becoming a world-class talent organization, setting its focus on people and culture globally.

“As we work on driving growth and building a global EV company, we are ramping up our focus on building a world-class people organisation,” says Bhavish Aggarwal, chairman and group CEO, Ola.

He adds, “Bala’s (Balachandar) over three decades of experience across various consumer-facing segments will help us ensure we rapidly scale up the organisation's structure, capacity, and capability to meet our global growth ambitions”.

Balachandar is a 33-year industry HR veteran and brings global experience to the company. He has worked across India, Europe and Asia with GE Healthcare and GE Capital in several senior HR leadership and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) roles, with Strides Arcolab, with the Standard Chartered Bank and with Asian Paints early in his career. He was most recently as group director with the Coffee Day Group.

Excited about his new role, Balachandar says, “I am excited to join Ola’s mission to transition the world to sustainable mobility. Having the best talent from around the world is integral to this mission and I look forward to building a global organization that will offer a lifetime of opportunities for employees and enable them to make a difference”.

Balachandar’s appointment comes close on the heels of Wayne Burgess who stepped into Ola Electric recently as Head of Vehicle Design. However, Wayne has spent almost three decades in designing vehicles for the majority of British premium automotive manufacturers, from Rolls Royce and Bentley in his early career to Aston Martin and Jaguar Landrover to the latest Lotus. Remarkably, he has also served as the chief designer for the Jaguar F-Type sports car, and then studio director for the Jaguar F-Pace SUV.

Ola is intending to launch the first in its range of electric scooters in the coming months. Packed with advanced innovations, the much-awaited Ola Scooter is a tech-driven electric vehicle with industry-leading range and swiftness. The electric two-wheeler will be rated aggressively to make it accessible to all and will help accelerate India’s transition to sustainable, clean and electric mobility.

Furthermore, the Ola Scooter would roll out from the Ola Future factory which is being built at record speed in Tamil Nadu, India. The Ola Future factory will be the world’s largest two-wheeler factory once fully operational at 10 million-a-year capacity next year. The factory would begin manufacturing the Ola Scooter as soon as its first phase of two million annual capacity is ready this summer.