The Leadership Team

Raj N Phani
Founder & Chairman

Raj N. Phani, Founder and Chairman of Zaggle, has over 20 years of business consulting experience. He founded Zaggle in 2011 as a network-agnostic payment platform on which merchants and consumers could seamlessly interact. A start-up evangelist, a strategist and a serial entrepreneur who previously worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd. and eYantra, Raj has extensive experience in setting up a business, structuring it, driving the sales and scaling it to the next level. His deep management experience and broad leadership skills help him drive efficient growth. He is on the Board of Directors of Loyalty Reward 3, eYantra, SSL Ltd., Zaggle, and Privilege Corner.

A key contributor to the Indian start-up ecosystem and a true visionary, he won the “Small Scale Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 2007. His futuristic outlook has been printed in magazines such as The Smart CEO, Business Today, Internet World and Outlook Business.

A business graduate from NYU Stern School of Business, Raj has successfully led the company to over INR300 Crores valuation and another two companies to over INR150 Crore valuation. When he is not mentoring start-ups on the power of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, he enjoys spending personal time organic farming, watching comedy shows, playing golf, cricket and badminton.

Avinash Godkhindi
MD & CEO

Avinash Godkhindi is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at Zaggle. With over 15 years of experience in international Fintech & payments, Avinash has been spearheading Zaggle’s growth since joining the company in 2012. Having served successful tenures in 12 countries across five continents in companies such as ING Bank, Barclays, Citicorp, Misys International and NIIT Technologies, he has held various leadership roles in product, sales, marketing, strategy, technology and operations across digital payments, fintech and cash management businesses.

During his tenure at Citibank, he was credited with the biggest credit card launch in India, the “Premier Miles Credit Card”.

Avinash completed his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business and is a fitness freak. When not in office, you would find him on the field playing cricket or football, or in the basketball court shooting a few balls. He is an avid reader and traveller, with wanderlust in his veins - to explore the far and unknown.

Hanif Shah
Chief Sales Officer

Hanif Shah is the Chief Sales Officer at Zaggle. With over 26 years of experience in Corporate Sales and Business Development in the Business-to-Business (B2B) space, he joined Zaggle in February 2018.

Prior to Zaggle, Hanif worked in leadership roles with Sodexo for almost 20 years, in the capacity of National Sales Director (India) and as Regional Sales Director (Asia Pacific).

Coming from diverse educational background, holding a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and doing an Executive Management from IIM Calcutta, Hanif believes in working continuously towards adding value to self and people he works with, through exchanging and collaborating ideas, and establishing mutually beneficial relationships.

Rajsekhar Gopisetti
Vice President Products

Rajsekhar Gopisetti is the Vice President (Products) at Zaggle. With over 20 years of experience in the fields of product development, project management, marketing, sales and strategy, he joined Zaggle in 2011. An innovator and a strategist, he has spearheaded the strategy and implementation road map for a range of prepaid product solutions for both corporates as well as consumers, crafting some of the most futuristic products in the digital space.

Prior to Zaggle, Rajsekhar successfully led and launched multiple initiatives for eYantra, Times Online Money Ltd., and Philips India Ltd. He also created corporate online brand stores for diverse companies such as TCS, HCL, Infosys, Capgemini and Dell.

An alumnus of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow, he is driven by his vision of helping build Zaggle into a world-class organization offering the best prepaid platforms.

Rajsekhar is known for his gregarious personality both on the Zaggle floor as well as on the field playing his favourite sports. Outside work, he can be found organizing sports tournaments particularly badminton and bridge. A connoisseur of food and arts, he is the go-to person for restaurant recommendations in and around Hyderabad or reviews of the latest movies in town.

Samar Vijay Pupala
Chief Financial Officer

Samar has a proven track record of over 25 years of experience in building Digital Businesses in Remittances (Remit2India), Payments (Direcpay), Mutual Funds, Equity, Taxation (Tax in 20) and Platform Sales. He likes to connect discrete and unconnected data points to achieve a different way of thinking.

He has curated and driven the white labeled platform Business in Remittances for TimesofMoney and led the Regulatory Interface as its CFO with RBI, FATF, SEBI, Direct and Indirect Tax (GST) authorities and Regulators in the US, UK and Australia.

He has served as Director on the Board of TimesofMoney Private Limited and was associated with Arthur Andersen, Timesgroup and Network International earlier. At Zaggle he leads the Finance Function as our Chief Finance Officer and our Expense Management Business Head for SAVE+.

Tushar Patil
Regional Sales Head – West

Tushar Patil is the Vice President –Sales at Zaggle. With over 18 years of successful experience in the banking and cement industry, he joined Zaggle in 2012 as the Regional Sales Head (West) and has been responsible for the promotion of digital payment instruments in Western India.

He has in-depth expertise in channel & institutional sales, key account management, and relationship management while working in companies such as Lakshmi Cement, Binani Cement, ICICI Bank Ltd and Adecco. Being a Civil Engineer and an MBA (Marketing & Finance) from SIMB, Pune, Tushar firmly believes that Zaggle’s growth is based upon strong foundation of team work, perseverance, efficiency and persuasiveness.

Outside the office, he spends his leisure time doing yoga and meditation. An avid traveller, he relishes every opportunity to explore a new place.

Shreekanth Dhond
Head of Operations, Service Quality & Customer Experience

Shreekanth Dhond is the Vice President and Head of Operations, Customer Experience & Service Quality at Zaggle. With over 16 years of experience in Banking, Cards, Finance and Telecom Industry, having worked with Citibank N.A, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Appco India, he joined the company in 2013.

A man of many talents, he has vast knowledge in areas of Customer Service, Client Relationship, Quality Monitoring, Product Management, Training, Process Re-engineering and Vendor Management. With a Post Graduate degree in Business Management, Shreekanth’s dream is to build Zaggle into a team of world-class professionals focused on Quality and Customer Satisfaction.

In his spare time, Shreekanth is an adventure enthusiast. He has conquered most peaks around Mumbai, Raigad and across the Sahyadri range, often in record time. His impressive list of adventurous indulgences includes rappelling, rock climbing, cycle expeditions, rifle shooting, scuba diving, snorkelling and para-sailing, among others. When not at work, he relaxes himself in doing Gardening and listening to the Melodies from the Golden era of 70’ to 90’. When indoors, he is a keen avid non-fiction reader.

Priti Mhatre
– Senior Manager – Human Resources

Priti Mhatre is the Senior Manager – Human Resources at Zaggle. She heads pan India HR and strives to streamline every functions in HR department.

She brings in 14+ years of work experience with 6+ years in Human Resources and rest in Operations and Client servicing, worked with companies like Intelenet Global Services, First Advantage & Ocwen Financial Solutions.

Priti is a post graduate from Mumbai University and has done Masters in Human Resource Management from Symbiosis, Pune.

When not in office, Priti likes to watch movies, hands on culinary art, listening to music, travelling & Zumba for fitness.

Abhishek Bhattacharjee
– Head - Strategic Partnership & New Initiatives

Abhishek Bhattacharjee holds the designation of Head - Strategic Partnership & New Initiatives at Zaggle, a role he has held since he joined Zaggle in 2015. He currently manages the relationships with Zaggle's partner banks and payment networks (VISA, Rupay & Mastercard). He looks to aggressively convert every new opportunity into a high dividend paying new product or relationship.

Envisaging a world where more people choose non-cash modes of payment, he is determined to make it a reality through new initiatives and innovative product constructs at Zaggle. He is also responsible for strategic partnerships and merchant associations in the Zaggle product portfolio.

Abhishek has over 10 years of experience in areas of Product Conceptualism and execution around innovative prepaid payment initiatives for both bank and non bank led programs, Business development, Product Strategy, Marketing, Product Development, Product compliance along with managing key relationships and accounts. Prior to Zaggle, he headed new initiatives in digital banking for Electronic Payment and Services (P) Ltd. among other business roles. When not in office, he pursues photography, travelling, trekking and hiking.

Trusted by 4000+ Brands Across the world

Our Customers  

Zaggle has provided us one stop solutions for all our gifting needs. The person been gifted Zaggle card feels special & has the rights to choose the gift vouchers and this is something remarkable. You can personalize them too the number of outlets supporting Zaggle is huge & instead of empanelling multiple vendors this one stop solution is the best!

Cheryl Ghosh, Program Manager - Yahoo! SDC India Pvt Ltd

Association with zaggle has been an year now. Gifting & Rewards program with zaggle boosted team helping our productivity goals. Employees are happy to pick up the vouchers online or walk into any store of their choice with the Gift card.The support extended by your team need to be appreciated.

Keyur Shah,Transaction Banking - Axis Bank

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