Mumbai: Homegrown jobs and professional networking platform apna has announced the appointment of Shantanu Preetam as its first chief technology officer (CTO).

As the CTO at apna, Preetam will be responsible to build upon the technology foundation, strengthening it further through the platform and right organisational structure, said the company in a statement on Wednesday. "He will be closely working with the business, growth and product teams to align technology with company goals," it added.

“I am thrilled to have someone of Shantanu’s caliber join our team. Seeing his journey of the last two decades, I have been blown away by his capabilities as a leader," said apna CEO and founder Nirmit Parikh. “Shantanu and I have already spent hours together, discussing everything from engineering and products to culture strategy and vision. We firmly believe that Shantanu will help shape our long-term vision and help build a robust tech platform that will determine the future of apna and the dreams of 2.3 billion people around the world.”

An alumnus of the University of Pune, Preetam comes with over two decades of experience in digital transformation, technology architecture, e-commerce, consumer-facing products, supply chain technologies, AI/MI, and data analytics. He has led teams across geographies and industries to design and develop highly scalable world-class products.

Preetam has driven tech growth strategies to enable software development, cloud platforms and infrastructure engineering. Shantanu has previously led teams at some of the top companies including PayU, Walmart, Yahoo, and Dell.

“I am always on the lookout for the next big thing in our ecosystem we are part of. apna’s mission to empower a billion lives is ambitious, motivating and hard-hitting," said Shantanu Preetam on his new assingment. "I am confident that through technology, we will be able to scale apna faster than any other consumer-facing product and not only change lives but also become the world’s largest jobs and professional networking platform in the next few years.”