Bhavish Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal is the founder, chairman and managing director of Ola Electric. He is also the co-founder of Ola’s ride-hailing business and the founder of artificial-intelligence company Krutrim.

Journey

Aggarwal earned a B.Tech in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2008. He then worked at Microsoft Research India, where he contributed to research papers and patent applications.

In 2010, he left Microsoft and co-founded Ola Cabs with Ankit Bhati. The business began as a way to book cabs online and developed into a large ride-hailing platform. Aggarwal later reduced his involvement in Ola’s day-to-day consumer operations to concentrate on manufacturing and new technology businesses.

He founded Ola Electric in 2017. The company first explored electric-mobility services and later moved into designing and manufacturing electric two-wheelers, batteries and related technology. It acquired Etergo, developed the S1 scooter range, built a large factory in Tamil Nadu and listed on the Indian stock exchanges in 2024. Aggarwal also launched Krutrim, which has worked on AI models, cloud infrastructure and computing products.

Working approach

Aggarwal favours vertical integration and argues that India should build more of its own vehicles, cells, software and computing infrastructure. His management style is associated with ambitious targets, speed and long working hours. Public reporting has also raised concerns about employee culture, leadership concentration and execution pressure.

Assessment

Aggarwal has repeatedly moved from digital platforms into capital-intensive technology and manufacturing. That ambition is distinctive, but the record also includes service backlogs, regulatory attention, workforce reductions and changing priorities at Krutrim. His performance should therefore be judged not only by launches and scale, but by product quality, customer service, governance and sustained financial improvement.