Pine Labs offers a merchant platform that includes technology and financial solutions for merchants to help them in increasing their revenue, reducing the cost and complexity of running business, and managing the risks involved.

Information Technology

Pine Labs

Swaminathan joined [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs) from Amazon India where she was heading the human resources (HR) function. 

Prior to Amazon India, Swaminathan was one of the founding partners at CoCoon Consulting, a cross-sectoral boutique HR consulting firm with expertise in solutions for organisational and leadership transformation and growth. She has also worked with FMCG major [Unilever](/org/unilever) where, in her last role, she was responsible for bolstering the company’s employer brand.

Vijayalakshmi Swaminathan

Phanimohan Kalagara is the current Chief Technical Officer at [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs). Phanimohan has over twenty-five years of experience in the software development industry. Phanimohan has held various positions at different companies, including Sr. Director of Engineering at Flipkart, Director of Software Development at Advanced Interactive Systems, and Software Developer at Parametric Technology Corporation. Phanimohan has a wealth of knowledge and experience in product development, engineering, and software development that they bring to their current role at [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs).

Phanimohan Kalagara completed a B. Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University and an MS in Computer Science from [Utah State University](/org/utah-state-university).

Phanimohan Kalagara reports to B. Amrish Rau, CEO. They are on a team with Kumar Sudarsan - President, Gift, Prepaid & Stored Value, Ajith Prabhu - Chief Experience Officer, and Gayatri Rath - Chief Marketing & Communications Officer.

Phanimohan Kalagara

Kumar is the President- Gift, Prepaid and Stored Value at [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs). Kumar has 27 years of business leadership, product engineering and solution deployment expertise covering high throughput transaction processing, database management, middleware and internet technologies.

Kumar co-founded Qwikcilver in 2006, established the Company as the largest provider of Gift Card solutions in India, SEA and ME markets with over 90% market share of Gift Card Market in India, and led its successful acquisition by [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs). At [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), Kumar will continue to provide leadership in the Gift, Prepaid and Stored Value business and drive its growth.

Prior to founding Qwikcilver, Kumar worked for leading Product companies such as Hewlett Packard, [Verifone](/org/verifone) and Aztecsoft. While at [Verifone](/org/verifone), he developed and managed innovative products and solutions in the Payments space. At Aztecsoft, Kumar successfully engineered a number of web, middleware, and database technology products. At Hewlett Packard, Kumar managed the engineering function for multi-million-dollar product lines as part of the R&D team in Bangalore.

Kumar has extensive knowledge and experience in the Payments space, and has been involved in designing, developing, and implementing products for credit and debit payment switches and processors, stored-value payments at large financial institutions, third-party processors, and retailers. Kumar holds a Master's degree in Mathematics, and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from BITS Pilani, India.

Kumar Sudarsan

Krishnan Iyer brings more than two decades of experience in finance, risk and business operations. Before joining [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), he was the Chief Risk Officer at Reliance Home Finance Ltd. Prior to that, he was the Chief Financial Officer at Reliance Commercial Finance where he headed the underwriting and operations functions. He started his career at Anagram Finance and later worked with ICICI bank managing their retail asset operations.

Krishnan is a Chartered and Cost Accountant with a degree in commerce. In his free time, he likes reading biographies and solving sudoku. He binge-watches the latest online series and likes listening to classic rock from the '70s-'80s.

Krishnan Iyer

B. Amrish Rau is the Chief Executive Officer of [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs). He leads the company's growth and expansion in Asia and beyond.

Amrish has over two decades of rich experience in the fintech industry, having run fintech organizations and having worked with large banks to implement payments and delivery channel strategies. Prior to joining [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), Amrish was the head of financial technology investments and partnerships for [Naspers](/org/naspers) where he was responsible for increasing the company's footprint in the financial technology sector, and helped create synergies between the group's portfolio companies. Amrish has also worked with other global organizations including First Data, NCR and Siemens Nixdorf.

In 2013, Amrish founded CitrusPay which was acquired by [PayU](/org/payu) in 2016 for USD 150 million.

A bachelor in engineering, Amrish has over the years helped build new businesses and new divisions in global companies. Many of these continue to be market leaders in their respective category today. He started his fintech journey in First Data Corporation in 2005. Later, as Managing Director for First Data Asia he helped build a market leading payments joint venture with [ICICI Bank](/org/icici-bank). As CEO of First Data MS Asia, he was responsible for all operations in the South and South East Asia markets between India and Hong Kong. Prior to First Data, Amrish spent eight years with NCR Corporation where he started in business development and went on to head the company's data warehousing and CRM division, [Teradata](/org/teradata), as managing director.

Amrish is a Squash father and follows his children all over the world as they pursue the game.

B. Amrish Rau

Nitish Asthana has over 22 years of experience in senior executive roles across payments, fintech, insurance and banking with large multinationals.

Nitish last served as Managing Director- India & Sri Lanka at First Data Corporation and Fiserv Inc (FDC merged with Fiserv Inc in July 2019), where he led businesses across merchant payments/ acquiring, cards issuing processing and banking technology. He led the growth of ICICI Merchant Services (a Fiserv JV with [ICICI Bank](/org/icici-bank)) with 8X revenue growth, 50%+ EBITDA margins and to build a merchant base of 400K since the JV's formation.

Previously, he served as the APAC head of First Data's merchant payments business across 9 countries and based in Singapore, covering $70b GPV and processing for nearly 700K merchants across the region. He has also served as General Manager of First Data's JV with ICICI in India and as the Head of Ventures, focusing on corporate development, partnerships, and M&A.

Nitish has led the start-up of two large life insurance companies- Bharti AXA Life and [Aviva](/org/aviva-plc), as a founding leader at both JV firms. He led the establishment of the distribution platforms in Bancassurance, telecom- insurance and agency channels, led the founding partnerships with banks and corporates, and led the launch of new products. He also served as Director- Bancassurance and Partnerships at Metlife India, leading the dominant distribution channels for the company.

His early career was at Standard Chartered and Citibank in their respective consumer banking units.

Nitish holds a PGDM from [IIM Lucknow](/org/iim-lucknow) and B.Com (Honours) from SRCC, Delhi University.

Nitish Asthana

One of the founding members, Rakesh Sharma has deep domain knowledge about the petroleum retailing industry. He has rich experience of over 28 years in prepaid and petroleum retail domains and has managed functions such as business development, program management and technology. Prior to joining [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), he was associated with Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd.

Rakesh holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from Regional Engineering College, Warangal and a Master's in Business Administration.

Rakesh Sharma

Anu Mathew has over 18 years of experience in human resource management and leadership development. Before joining [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), Anu was the Head of Human Resources at Qwikcilver. She has also worked with GE and HCL where she designed and executed people development strategies and worked closely with the business leadership.

Anu is an economics graduate and holds a post-graduation in human resources. In her free time, she enjoys reading fiction and watching movies.

Anu Mathew

Kush Mehra has rich experience of over 14 years in the payment industry and possesses extensive knowledge of the cards ecosystem. Prior to joining [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), Kush held leadership positions in Visa Inc., [American Express](/org/american-express) and Citibank, spanning 10 years.

Kush holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Delhi University and a Master's in Business Administration, Marketing from Fore School of Management. In his free time, Kush likes to watch documentaries on historic events, future of technology and life stories of sports icons. He is a travel and fitness enthusiast.

Kush Mehra

Mathenz has a reputation for scaling and growing international businesses. He significantly expanded the [Fiserv](/org/fiserv) and First Data businesses in the APAC region; strategic M&A, skilful integration and an efficiently executed multi-country expansion being key pillars of that success. In addition to having been the managing director (CEO) of both [Fiserv](/org/fiserv) and First Data in APAC, he was also the regional CFO at First Data earlier.

Marc Mathenz

Sameer Maheshwary has over two decades of experience in business leadership and senior finance roles. Before joining [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), he spent the majority of his career with GE. He has worked extensively in the areas of payments, retail and corporate lending, credit cards, equipment leasing, receivables financing and real estate financing. In his role as SVP of Capital Markets, Maheshwary is leading the company's IPO. 

Sameer holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from Manchester Business School, UK. He is an avid reader and likes to play golf in his free time.

Sameer Maheshwary

Lokvir Kapoor is responsible for starting [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs) on its merchant commerce journey in 2004. He remains deeply committed to [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs)' vision of helping merchants succeed. He lives in New Delhi with his family.

Lokvir Kapoor has led various initiatives of building game changing, innovative payment solutions at the organization. He has a keen interest in disruptive, new payment technologies and their application to evolving customer needs.

He has over 25 years of diverse experience in identifying new opportunities, setting goals and strategies, and building teams to spearhead various initiatives.

Before [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), he worked with [Schlumberger](/org/schlumberger) in the areas of financial management and business development in India and overseas.

Lokvir holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and a Master’s in Business Administration from IIM, Bangalore.

Lokvir Kapoor

Ajith Prabhu has over two decades of experience in handling quality, customer services and operations. Before joining [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs), he served as the Head of Operations and Customer Services at Reliance Home Finance. Ajith spent over 11 years at Reliance Home Finance and worked towards process improvement, automation and digital initiatives. He has also worked with Dell and [Bharti Airtel](/org/bharti-airtel) in process and quality functions.

Ajith holds an engineering degree from [National Institute of Technology](/org/national-institute-of-technology), Rourkela and a post graduate diploma in management from K. J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies. He is a marathon runner and a fitness enthusiast.

Ajith Prabhu

Gayatri is the Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs). She is responsible for expanding the relevance of the brand among key audiences across India, South East Asia, and the Middle East.

Over her 25 years of professional experience, Gayatri has helped 20+ global and regional brands grow in South Asia.

Prior to taking on this role, Gayatri was a consultant to [Pine Labs](/org/pine-labs) for two years. She worked closely with the leadership team to set up the marketing, branding, and communications function at the company.

Between 2013 and 2018 she led storytelling at Microsoft in India and was part of the Microsoft India leadership team. Prior to that, she led Communications at GE Capital India and was a member of the board at two GE companies between 2009 and 2013. Gayatri has also worked at Oracle for six years where she led teams and projects in 12+ Asian countries.

She is a certified diversity professional (CDP) and has led women employee resource groups at GE and Microsoft. In her free time, she runs Saptasajya Foundation, a not-for-profit that helps students and artisans.

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