Exotel Co-founder and COO Ishwar Sridharan Steps Down Sridharan began his career at SAP Labs, and later worked at Yahoo! as Principal Engineer and at Position2 as Engineering Manager.

By Entrepreneur Staff

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Ishwar Sridharan

Ishwar Sridharan, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Exotel, has stepped down from his role after spending more than 14 years with the Bengaluru-based cloud telephony and customer engagement company, according to Entrackr.

Sridharan confirmed his departure in an internal email to employees on Monday, stating that it marked his last official day at Exotel. He described his time at the company as the most remarkable and productive phase of his professional life and expressed pride in helping build what he called an "institution built to last."

Before co-founding Exotel in 2011 along with Shivakumar Ganesan and Siddharth Ramesh, Sridharan worked at SAP Labs, Yahoo! as Principal Engineer, and Position2 as Engineering Manager.

His exit adds to a series of recent high-level departures from the firm. Since December 2024, Exotel has witnessed the resignations of India Business Head Angira Agrawal, Senior Director for BFSI Late Lalit Khosa, and Vice President of Human Resources Sumanpreet Bhatia.

The leadership churn comes after an earlier workforce reduction in 2023, when the company laid off about 142 employees, nearly 15 percent of its staff. The firm had also introduced changes to its Performance Improvement Plan policy, eliminating the requirement for prior warnings before placing employees under review.

Exotel has raised over USD 100 million from investors including Blume Ventures, A91 Partners, and Sistema Asia. Data from TheKredible shows A91 Partners holds the largest external stake at 25.7 percent, followed by Blume Ventures.

The company competes with players such as Knowlarity, MyOperator, Ozonotel, and Tata Communications.

Entrepreneur Staff

Entrepreneur Staff

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