Mumbai: Yoho, India’s fastest growing D2C footwear brand, has appointed Sanjeev Misra as executive director, effective 1 November. He is also an investing partner holding equity in the startup.
Misra has over three decades of experience in the corporate world. Prior to joining Yoho, he spent more than five years as the senior vice president & director of Paytm, where he led B2B commerce and global exports & imports.
His leadership approach has been built around sharp prioritization and focus, growing businesses and brands through innovation, transforming sales, driving productivity, while building teams with the right structure, talent, and culture.
Prior to Paytm, Misra held the position of vice president - group business & renewables at the Adani Group for almost 3 years. He was responsible for accelerating sales, building strategic planning and overall business development, including corporate governance & IT, telecom. Additionally, he was managing large-scale projects at the firm. Before that, he has spent over a decade in Silicon Valley, working for brands including Motorola Semiconductors, Cisco Systems, Adobe, Compaq Computers and Silicon Graphics.
Commenting on his appointment, Misra said, “I feel both honoured and humbled on being appointed as the executive director of one of the fastest growing and innovative Indian footwear brands. I’m also excited about the journey ahead in this fascinating space. The Indian footwear industry has the potential to grow 10 folds in the coming years. According to some recent reports, the revenue in the footwear market in India amounts to $23.73 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow annually by 6.77 per cent, CAGR 2022-2027. At Yoho, I look forward to building on the versatile brand that believes in offering comfortable and stylish footwear that cost less than half of the ones offered by popular global giants.”
Yoho founder Ahmad Hushsham said, “We are delighted to welcome Misra, first as one of our angel investors and now as our executive director. He has played an instrumental role in our strategic development in the initial stage of coming out of stealth mode.”
Yoho founder Prateek Singhal said, “We are privileged to have Misra join Yoho at this opportune time when we are looking at building and investing in new technology to build new product propositions and directly support our long-term strategic plan. In his new capacity as an executive director we will seek his guidance to scale up the business and expand the consumer base as we continue to disrupt the footwear market with our state-of-the-art technology and AI-powered solutions to create high-performance footwear that is affordable for all.”
Recently, Yoho raised Rs 20 crore in a Series A round of funding by a group of influential investors, led by Softbank Vision Fund CEO Rajeev Misra, Rukam Capital, and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, along with participation from other investors.
Founded in 2021, Yoho has already sold 1,00,000+ pairs of footwear after coming out of stealth mode four months back, with just three products - Bubbles, Waves, and Breeze. The products designed with orthopedic ergonomics are available for both men and women across all top e-commerce platforms. Before launching the product lines, Yoho created almost 700 prototypes before settling for the right product line. Each prototype went through stringent tests to ensure that customers get a product that is super comfortable and long-lasting.
