Carsome Group Appoints Vishnu Nambiar as CTO
Vishnu Nambiar, CTO of Carsome Group
Malaysia, 3 August 2021 - Carsome Group (Carsome), Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform, today announced the appointment of Vishnu Nambiar as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In this role, Nambiar will drive Carsome’s next stage of transformation through leading the technology team and spearheading the strategy on deploying technology to address the automotive industry’s most pressing needs.
Nambiar is a seasoned technology leader with demonstrated success in driving organizational innovation. As former CTO of AirAsia, the leading travel and financial platform company in Asia Pacific that started as a low-cost carrier, he rolled out multiple game-changing initiatives that ensured the sustainability of the airline during the COVID-19 pandemic, and digitized the passenger experience, all while improving efficiency. His addition to Carsome’s executive management team will aid the company’s drive to become Southeast Asia’s most valuable digital automotive marketplace.
Carsome Co-founder and Group CEO Eric Cheng said that welcoming Nambiar to the team adds significant strength to the company’s growing executive leadership bench. “Vishnu’s experience in transforming business operations through technological innovations means he is perfectly placed to bring us to the next level as a technology-driven marketplace for all things automotive in the region,” Cheng added.
At Carsome, Nambiar’s role is digitizing the entire car ownership journey, while creating an integratedand engaging ecosystem. He is also empowered with providing greater trust and transparency for consumers and all stakeholders through providing convenience and access to the right data to help them make the best decisions along the automotive chain, ultimately deploying innovation to address the most pressing issues in the automotive industry through technology.
Nambiar takes over from Chet Sin, who is appointed as Carsome’s Chief Architect to lead the design, implementation and governance of the company's technology architecture. Sin will be coordinating efforts to integrate platforms and synchronize technological frameworks across Carsome to accelerate growth as the company expands its service offerings in the market.
“Carsome is at a pivotal point in its development, and the timing couldn’t be better for me to join,” said Nambiar. “I’m seeking to build the best technology team in Asia at Carsome that will solve some of the biggest pain points in the used automotive industry. It’s full speed ahead for us as we reach toward these goals.”
Prior to joining Carsome, Nambiar led the technology function of AirAsia Airline and the Group IT function of AirAsia Group. In addition to rolling out multiple initiatives within low cost parameters, he drove the digital transformation of the airline across operations and enabled the technology operations of Enterprise Product, IT Infrastructure, IT Operations, Corporate IT, and IT Project Management Office, respectively. Before this, he led the technology domains of both Lazada and LEL Technology based out of Vietnam, supporting the growth of Lazada to becoming a key e-commerce leader in the Southeast Asia region.
Carsome is the market leader in the online used car buying and selling platform across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. The company recently announced the proposed acquisition of iCar Asia, which cements its position as the first tech unicorn in Malaysia and Southeast Asia’s most valuable digital automotive marketplace.
Nambiar’s appointment as CTO is a key part of how Carsome is transforming the industry through delivering trust, transparency and technology and is the fourth C-suite executive management team appointment reporting to Cheng, since 2020. Other appointments since include Piyush Palkar as Chief Data Officer, Mei Han as CEO of Carsome Certified, Carsome’s business-to-consumer (B2C) arm, Benjamin Koellmann as Chief Operating Officer and Juliet Zhu as Chief Financial Officer.