Dynamic Leadership: Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter, CEO & MD, Info Edge India
Hitesh Oberoi holds the positions of co-promoter, managing director, and chief executive officer at Info Edge India, a company that owns the country's leading job site, Naukri.com, as well as 99acres.com, Jeevansathi.com, and Shiksha.com, and has investments in more than two dozen internet startups. With over two decades of experience in the internet industry, Hitesh is involved in various industry forums, serving as a charter member of TiE New Delhi and as the former chairman of IAMAI - The Internet and Mobile Association of India. Hitesh is also one of the founders and trustees of Ashoka University and the newly established Plaksha University. He strongly believes in utilising education as a primary tool for development and the power of philanthropy to revolutionise the Indian education landscape.
In 2008, Oberoi was honoured with the prestigious Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Business Transformation, which he shared with his partner. He was also the recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award of 2019 from IIM Bangalore.
Challenging Period
The two financial years - 2020-21 and 2021-22 - were particularly challenging years for the economy and for India Inc. Despite the challenges, under Oberoi's dynamic leadership, Info Edge’s core business – recruitment solutions – under the primary brand ‘naukri.com’ witnessed an impressive performance in FY22. The business segment became stronger in terms of cash generation while the operating cash flow more than doubled from Rs 492 crore in FY21 to Rs 1,024.4 crore in FY22. The recruitment segment billings increased 72.64 per cent to Rs 1,436.4 crore in FY22 while revenue grew by 44.21 per cent to Rs 1,154.2 crore. The segment’s EBITDA was Rs 679.9 crore in FY22 – representing an annual growth of over 55 per cent.
"Clearly, there was already a significant upswing in hiring activities in India during FY22. In the initial phase, this was mostly IT-led hiring. However, during the last quarter of FY22, non-IT hiring also picked as non-IT companies were fast adopting digitisation and building their internal IT teams," said Oberoi.
