Rahul Chari

Rahul Chari is a founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer of PhonePe. He moved into this broader role in July 2026 after serving for years as the company’s chief technology officer.

Journey

Chari studied computer engineering at the University of Mumbai and completed a master’s degree in computer science at Purdue University. His early career included work on enterprise storage and networking technology in the United States, including at Andiamo Systems and Cisco.

He later co-founded Mime360, a digital-media distribution business, with Sameer Nigam and Burzin Engineer. Flipkart acquired Mime360 in 2011, after which Chari joined Flipkart. As a vice president of engineering, he worked on supply-chain systems covering order management, warehousing and transport. The experience combined large-scale consumer transactions with complex operational infrastructure.

Chari, Nigam and Engineer founded PhonePe in December 2015, as India’s Unified Payments Interface was taking shape. Their aim was to make digital payments work directly through bank accounts in a simple consumer product. Flipkart acquired the young company in 2016, and PhonePe later grew into a separate group offering payments and other financial services.

As CTO, Chari led the architecture required to process high transaction volumes reliably. In 2026, PhonePe appointed Srijon Biswas as CTO and expanded Chari’s remit to product, technology, trust and safety, data science and analytics, customer experience and strategic initiatives.

Working approach

Chari has argued that organisations should build sound data and technology foundations before rushing to deploy new tools such as AI. This reflects a preference for resilience and architecture over short-term demonstrations.

Assessment

Chari has been central to PhonePe’s technical scale and is now responsible for connecting technology with product and customer outcomes. His broader role will be tested by the complexity of managing several regulated financial businesses on shared infrastructure.