Kuala Lumpur & Singapore, 10 March 2022 - Southeast Asia’s largest car e-commerce platform Carsome Group (Carsome) has appointed Digbijoy Shukla as its Head of Merger & Acquisition and Ecosystem Strategy.

In this new role, Shukla’s key responsibility is to develop an end-to-end ecosystem strategy for Carsome to ensure a seamless experience throughout the automotive ownership journey. It includes staying close to the automotive ecosystem in Southeast Asia and bringing in valuable Merger and Acquisition (M&A) targets and partnerships for the company; developing an integration strategy to create synergistic values with existing business units; and building the M&A and Ecosystem team regionally.

Carsome Co-founder and Group CEO Eric Cheng said that the entire Carsome team is excited about the growth prospects brought in by Shukla and his team. “Carsome’s vision has always been about creating an end-to-end yet open, transparent and collaborative automotive ecosystem powered by technology and data. The appointment of Digbijoy is timely as he will enable us to continue our customer focused mission, paired with industry participants to make the car ownership experience better in Southeast Asia,” Cheng added.

Shukla is an experienced professional, bringing with him nearly two decades of wide-ranging experiences across diverse sectors including marketing, operating, investment and venture building across Southeast Asia and India. Prior to Carsome, he spent over six years with leading cloud platform Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he led the startup and new venture business development function in Southeast Asia and prior to that in India, enabling startups to scale with the best help of the AWS and broader Amazon’s ecosystem.

Shukla also used to manage the country office for business venture catalyst Ennovent India, where he was instrumental in managing business development, operations and new business launch, which is India’s first impact angel group, Ennovent Circle. Before that, he was a founding member of EdTech startup TenMarks.INC, which was acquired by Amazon in 2013. Shukla is also an angel investor and has a personal angel portfolio of 21 startups.

"I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to work with such an inspiring team, who are constantly pushing the boundaries of innovation powered by relentless execution on behalf of our customers, to bring them peace of mind through the entire lifecycle of their vehicle ownership experience. I look forward to contributing to the expansion of Carsome’s vision and creating the most trusted vehicle ownership ecosystem powered by technology and data by driving synergetic business value via strategic partnerships in Southeast Asia.” Shukla said.

Shukla’s appointment is an important move that reinforces Carsome’s commitment to drive ecosystem expansion across the region, complement the car selling and buying experiences, bring more choices, enhance trust and increase transparency to its customers, dealers and partners regionally. It comes after the company’s recent announcement of completing its acquisition of iCarAsia, a leading listing and content automotive platform in Southeast Asia. Shukla was also involved in the transaction process.

This is another important step in the company’s continued efforts in strengthening the group’s leadership team, with other recent senior appointments being Juliet Zhuas Group President, Ravi Shankar Mallavarapuas Chief Marketing Officer, Andrew Mawikereas Country CEO of Indonesia, and Siwaphume Lertsansaran as Country Managing Director of Thailand.

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