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Rajesh Shankar Dhane joins Aviva India as chief legal and compliance officer
Gurugram: Aviva India has nabbed Rajesh Shankar Dhane as its chief legal and compliance officer, betting that his 20-year track record of navigating India’s treacherous regulatory waters will fortify its governance defences.
Dhane arrives from ACKO General Insurance with battle scars from stints at some of India’s heavyweight insurers: SBI General Insurance, Tata AIG Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance and HDFC ERGO General Insurance. His brief at Aviva is unambiguous: tighten compliance, manage legal risk and prop up the firm’s strategic ambitions whilst maintaining what managing director and chief executive Asit Rath calls “a strong culture of ethics”.
Rath reckons Dhane’s cross-pollination between life and general insurance, combined with a business-savvy legal mind, makes him the right weapon for a “future-ready organisation”. The appointment signals Aviva’s determination to stay ahead of India’s ever-shifting regulatory landscape, where missteps can prove costly.
Dhane, who holds a master’s degree in law from the University of Mumbai, said he’s joining at a pivotal moment as Aviva focuses on building “a strong, responsible, and future-ready business”. He pledged to partner with leadership to uphold “the highest standards of governance and ethics”, the sort of promise that sounds routine until regulators come knocking.
The move underscores how Indian insurers are beefing up their legal arsenals as competition intensifies and regulatory scrutiny tightens. For Aviva, a joint venture between Dabur Invest Corp and UK-based Aviva International Holdings, getting compliance right isn’t optional. It’s survival.
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Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
