Brands
Rajat Bansal steps down as CTO of games24x7 after four years
BENGALURU: Rajat Bansal is moving on from Games24x7, closing a four-year chapter that saw him steer one of India’s largest multi-gaming platforms, serving 100 million users and handling over five billion games annually. As CTO, he led product and platform engineering across My11Circle, RummyCircle, PokerCircle, and Wowzy, oversaw DevOps managing USD20 million of infrastructure, Infosec, IT, PMO, Data Engineering, and BI functions, and guided a 350-strong engineering team across Bengaluru and Mumbai.
Under his leadership, Games24x7 achieved 40 per cent YoY growth, delivered high-availability systems at 300k TPS with 99.9 per cent uptime, cut infrastructure costs by 67 per cent, and pioneered AI-driven solutions across product, data, and engineering operations. He also built initiatives like GameTechAccelerate and TechXpedite to establish Games24x7 as a technology leader in India’s gaming ecosystem.
Bansal brings over 25 years of global experience, having held senior technology leadership roles at Amazon, Hike Messenger, Naukri.com, Adobe, and Microsoft. His tenure included leading Amazon Hub Lockers engineering, scaling Prime Video’s global digital supply chain, building India’s largest messaging platform at Hike, and managing multi-terabyte data pipelines and distributed systems across continents.
Games24x7 marks a milestone in his career-but the horizon is calling. Rajat Bansal leaves behind a legacy of innovation, operational excellence, and high-performance engineering. Onward to new adventures.
Brands
Lululemon picks former Nike executive to be its next chief
Heidi O’Neill, who helped grow Nike into a $45 billion giant, will take the top job in September
CANADA: Lululemon has found its next chief executive, and she comes with serious credentials. The athleisure giant named Heidi O’Neill as its new CEO on Wednesday, ending a search that has left the company running on interim leadership since earlier this year. O’Neill will take charge on September 8, 2026, based out of Vancouver, and will join the board on the same day.
O’Neill brings more than three decades of experience across performance apparel, footwear and sport. The bulk of that time was spent at Nike, where she was a central figure in one of corporate sport’s great growth stories, helping take the company from a $9 billion business to a $45 billion global powerhouse. She oversaw product pipelines, brand strategy and consumer connections, and played a significant role in shaping how Nike spoke to athletes around the world. Earlier in her career, she worked in marketing for the Dockers brand at Levi Strauss. She also brings boardroom experience from Spotify Technology, Hyatt Hotels and Lithia and Driveway.
The board was unequivocal in its enthusiasm. “We selected Heidi because of the breadth of her experience, her demonstrated success delivering breakthrough ideas and initiatives at scale, and her ability to be a knowledgeable change and growth agent,” said Marti Morfitt, executive chair of Lululemon’s board.
O’Neill, for her part, was bullish. “Lululemon is an iconic brand with something rare: genuine guest love, a product ethos rooted in innovation, and a global platform still in the early stages of its potential,” she said. “My job will be to accelerate product breakthroughs, deepen the brand’s cultural relevance, and unlock growth in markets around the world.”
Until she arrives, Meghan Frank and André Maestrini will continue as interim co-CEOs, before returning to their previous senior leadership roles once O’Neill steps in.
Lululemon is betting that a Nike veteran who helped build one of the world’s most powerful sports brands can do something similar for an athleisure label that has genuine love from its customers but is still chasing its full global potential. O’Neill has done it before at scale. The question now is whether she can do it again.
