Brands
Honasa Consumer chief business officer Zarius Master puts in his papers
MUMBAI: It’s time for Zarius Master. to say goodbye. The chief business officer of D2C FMCG innovator Honasa Consumer Ltd resigned from the company on 2 January. His resignation becomes effective 28 February 2025.
Zairus, according to his linkedin profile, was responsible for lower funnel management to capture demand and translate to revenue; for leading the evolution of an omni channel, multi brand organisation to drive profitable growth by gaining shares across categories in beauty and personal care and for creation of a business plan through investment allocation choices across categories, brands, and channels to optimise for growth and profitability.
Honasa co-founder & CEO Varun Alagh, like Zarius, cut his teeth in FMCG with Hindustan Unilever and this is what encouraged the latter to join him.
Zarius joined the company in August 2021 from recruitment portal Shine.com where he worked for nearly eight years and rose to become its CEO. Prior to that he had stints in sales, marketing, and category leadership with some of the crème de la crème of corporations: Hindustan Unilever, Nokia, and Airtel.
An economic arts graduate, Zarius completed his diploma in marketing and topped that with an MBA in marketing from IIM, Lucknow.
Honasa which counts MamaEarth, The Derma Co, BBlunt, Dr Sheth’s, Aqualogica, Staze9to9 and the Bblunt Salons in its brand portfolio was founded in 2016 by Ghazal and Varun Alagh. It reported revenues of Rs 462 crores in Q2 FY 2025 while the half year 2025 revenues were at Rs 1016 crore. It reported a loss of Rs 19 crore in the quarter and a profit of Rs 22 crore for the half year.
Brands
Uber launches hotel bookings feature in partnership with Expedia
From hotel bookings to room service at your door, the ride-hailing giant is making its boldest push yet into everyday life
CALIFORNIA: Uber is done being just a taxi app. At its annual GO-GET product event, the world’s leading mobility and delivery platform unveiled a sweeping set of new features designed to plant itself at the centre of how people travel, eat and shop, hotel bookings included.
The headline move is a partnership with Expedia Group that lets Uber users in the United States book hotels directly within the Uber app, with access to a catalogue that will eventually grow to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members get 10 per cent back in Uber One credits on all hotel bookings and savings of at least 20 per cent on a rolling list of more than 10,000 hotels globally. Vacation rentals from Vrbo, Expedia Group’s home-rental brand, will be added later this year. The partnership is expected to expand beyond the United States. From June, Uber rides will also be integrated directly into the Expedia app, with push notifications sent to travellers ahead of hotel check-in to book discounted Uber rides for the duration of their stay.
Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber, framed the expansion in terms of the modern condition. “Uber is becoming an app for everything, helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place,” he said. “We’re all living through a moment of real cognitive overload: too many apps, too many decisions, too much noise. At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
Ariane Gorin, chief executive of Expedia Group, struck a similarly ambitious note. “Travel should feel effortless, and this partnership gets us one step closer to offering a seamless traveller experience,” she said. “By connecting our two-sided marketplace with Uber, we’re bringing Uber rides directly into the Expedia app and Expedia Group’s lodging inventory into the Uber app through our Rapid API technology. Together, we’re helping travellers spend less time planning and more time enjoying the journey.”
Beyond hotels, the product announcements come thick and fast. Travel Mode, available within both the Uber and Uber Eats apps, offers curated recommendations on local favourites, tourist destinations, OpenTable restaurant reservations and on-demand delivery to hotel rooms. Uber One International means the membership programme now works globally, allowing members to earn credits on rides abroad that can be redeemed once back home. A new Shop for Me feature lets users request items from any store, even those not listed on the app. Eats for the Way allows riders in select cities booking an Uber Black or Uber Black SUV to have a drink or snack waiting for them in the car. Voice Bookings, powered by artificial intelligence, lets users book a ride conversationally, without touching their phone. And a redesigned One Search bar consolidates results for places, food and items across the entire Uber platform in a single query.
Uber has now logged more than 72 billion trips since it launched in 2010. The question it is now answering is what comes after the ride. The answer, apparently, is everything else. Whether users want a hotel in Paris, a coffee in the back of a car or a snake plant from the local garden centre, Uber would very much like to be the one to provide it. The app economy’s land grab has a new front-runner.
NOTE: The image used is AI generated and only for representational purposes.
