Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) has reportedly approached McLaren Strategic Ventures’ Hitesh Sethia to join Jio Financial Services as its chief executive officer (CEO), sources privy with the matter told Bloomberg. Jio Financial Services, currently operating under RIL, is planning to get listed on the bourses later this year.
Last year in November, Jio Financial Services appointed K V Kamath as its non-executive chairman.
Reliance is yet to disclose detailed information concerning Jio Financial Services’ initial public offering. Jio Financial Services “will be a technology-led business, delivering financial products digitally by leveraging the nationwide omni-channel presence of Reliance’s consumer businesses,” RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani had said in a statement last year while announcing Jio Financial Services as a separate entity.
Additionally, the statement also added that Jio Financial Services is “uniquely positioned” in a way to acquire more opportunities and to bring “millions of Indians into formal financial institutions.” As per a report by Macquarie Research published last year, Jio Financial Services can change the payment business and will pose a challenge to other fintech models.
As per Sethia’s LinkedIn Profile, he joined McLaren as its head of Europe in June 2022 and will be moving back to India to accept the new role at Reliance, sources told Bloomberg. Prior to this, Sethia has worked with ICICI Bank for close to two decades in multiple locations across the globe such as Chennai, Toronto, Frankfurt, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong.
