Gojek, an Indonesian rideshare company and 'super app', today announced it has appointed a new chief technology officer. Severan Rault, who previously held senior positions at Amazon and Microsoft, takes over from Ajey Gore, who announced his departure for personal reasons last month.
In a statement, the company said Rault will oversee Gojek engineering teams in South East Asia and India and report to Co-Managing Director Kevin Aluwi.
Rault has a long history of leading engineering teams at large tech companies, as well as his own startups.
Prior to joining Gojek, Rault worked at Betawave, a virtual reality studio he founded in 2016. During his time at Amazon, Rault was one of the founders of Prime Air, the drone delivery program of the company. At Microsoft, he was the main architect of Bing, the company's search engine. Rault's other experience includes the creation of Kikker Interactive, a wireless solutions provider acquired by Microsoft in 2008.
Rault's appointment comes at a critical time for Gojek as he faces competition from rival Grab and deals with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month, Gojek said it was laying off 430 employees, or around 9% of its workforce, and shutting down GoLife, its lifestyle services division, to focus on its core payment, transportation and delivery businesses. of food as part of its long-term response to the pandemic.
Founded in 2010 as a motorcycle company, Gojek has since evolved into a "super app" that offers online payments and a list of on-demand services, including transportation, e-commerce deliveries and shipping. logistics. Gojek recently added Facebook and PayPal to a list of top investors including Google and Tencent.
Gojek revealed in March that it was worth $ 10 billion and now has more than 170 million users, but faces a fierce rivalry from Grab, another on-demand telephony and logistics platform in Asia. Southeastern who is also developing an online financial services business. With a valuation of $ 14 billion, Grab is the largest company. Earlier this year, reports revealed the two were discussing a merger, which Gojek denied and Grab declined to comment.
In a statement, Rault said: "This is a time like no other to be in Gojek. The business is entering a critical phase as it moves from start-up to maturation and it's special to be a part of it. Building systems and processes for a company of Gojek's size and complexity is a challenge one rarely enjoys in one's career and I am grateful for the opportunity.
