Swiggy CTO Dale Vaz Steps Down; Madhusudhan Rao To Take Over

Swiggy announced on Monday (April 3) that Dale Vaz has stood down as its chief technology officer (CTO) and will take on an advisory role beginning in May 2023.

Swiggy hired Vaz, a University of Massachusetts Amherst alumnus, as its director of engineering and data science in 2018. In February 2020, he was named CTO.

A Swiggy spokesperson told Inc42, “We confirm Dale Vaz has decided to move on from Swiggy to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. He will continue in his role till May 2023 & will be associated with Swiggy for an extended period in an advisory role. We thank him earnestly for his many contributions to Swiggy.”

According to his LinkedIn page, Vaz was the group CTO for Swiggy Food, Swiggy Instamart, Dineout, SuprDaily, Swiggy Genie, Minis, and meat and alcohol business lines at the foodtech unicorn.

Madhusudan Rao, Swiggy’s present senior vice president of consumer and fintech (engineering and product), will succeed Vaz as the food delivery company’s CTO.

“Madhusudan Rao will take over as CTO. Madhu has been with Swiggy for over 4 years and has decades of tech leadership experience with a proven track record of understanding what our customers need,” the Swiggy spokesperson said.

Rao has also been with Swiggy since 2018, having joined as a vice president handling engineering at the foodtech’s storefront business, before being promoted to his current role in April 2021.

The development comes days after the head of Instamart, Swiggy’s grocery delivery vertical, Karthik Gurumurthy stepped down from his position to take a sabbatical. Swiggy cofounder Phani Kishan Addepalli will be taking up the role of head of Instamart.

The latest development comes at a time when a number of tech startups have seen top-level exits in recent times. Earlier this year, ShareChat’s founders Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan stepped down from active roles at the short-video platform. In place of Singh and Ahsan, CFO Manohar Singh Charan and senior VP Gaurav Bhatia will be leading management and engineering roles in the company respectively.