Zomato appoints 5 independent directors

Online food ordering platform Zomato on Friday said it has appointed five independent directors on its eight-member board, including four women.

"More than gender diversity though, what we have always been gunning for is cognitive diversity across levels in our organization. Evidence-based research shows that a key prerequisite for innovation comes from cognitively diverse people," Zomato founder and Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal said in a blog post.

Up until now, "we had a largely investor-run board. But today, I'm elated to share that we have five independent members on our board of eight people, four of whom are women," he added.

The new independent members on the board are TARI Founder Kaushik Dutta, badminton player Aparna Popat, Zalora Group CEO Gunjan Tilak Raj Soni, Airveda founder Namita Gupta, and ex-ABN Amro executive, Sutapa Banerjee.

"...having gender diversity on our board was a baseline, not a north star. Today, it makes me truly happy to share that each of our board members come from different occupational backgrounds bringing diverse cognitive skills and perspectives to the table," he added.

A number of companies start with a diverse employee base at the entry-level, but it reduces significantly over time, and at senior levels, Goyal said.

"We decided to turn the paradigm on its head by introducing diversity with our Board of Directors. We're hoping this is another small step towards building a truly lasting organizational culture where everybody belongs. And everybody thrives," he added.

Meanwhile, in a tweet on a media report that the company is likely to file Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator on Friday, Goyal said it was incorrect.

"This is incorrect. Wouldn't typically comment on speculation, but had to in order to stop the barrage of phone calls from the press and friends/family. Back to work," Goyal said.