Cleartrip bolsters leadership ranks with two new appointments

BENGALURU: Online travel and leisure activities platform Cleartrip has announced the appointment of Indroneel Dutt and Ankit Rastogi as its CFO and vice president of hotels, respectively.

Dutt will be based in Mumbai and will focus on optimising cost efficiencies and revenue streams for more resilient operations, while Rastogi will spearhead the brand’s hotel-based business out of Bengaluru with a view to create a more robust foundation of its core business.

The appointments by Cleartrip are in sync with its long-term growth strategy of pushing for the next phase of its growth by bolstering its leadership team.

Dutt has previously worked with high-growth organisations such as Tata Consultancy Services and eFORCE Global, and has also been associated with a private equity fund as an operating partner.

Rastogi, on the other hand, founded IndiaHotelReview in 2006 as a budget OTA targeting the Tier-II markets. Operational between 2007 and 2012, the venture received several awards and acclaims from the industry. He has also championed mobile apps, mobile web, and desktop products at goibibo.com, where he was instrumental in setting up the hotels and holidays business from scratch. He joins Cleartrip from Stayzilla, where he was responsible for seeding, creating and executing the concept of an alternate stay accommodation marketplace.

“We are looking to scale our operations and expand our market footprint by tapping into the hyperbolic growth trajectory that the hotel category is expected to witness. This requires intelligent products that are omni-present across multiple formats and are personalised to each consumer's need. Building such a product and sustaining it commercially will need deep domain knowledge and hands-on expertise. With Indroneel and Ankit on board, we are confident that Cleartrip will realise exponential growth,” said Prasad Menon, chief human resource officer of Cleartrip.