At VerSe, Ramesh will also chair the board’s audit committee and oversee financial reporting integrity, internal controls, enterprise risk management, regulatory compliance and audit processes, the company said.
Ramesh currently serves or has served on the boards of several prominent listed and unlisted companies, including Air India, Cipla, Nestle India and Larsen & Toubro. His appointment to VerSe’s board comes almost a year after the company’s then auditor, Deloitte, had flagged issues in the internal controls of the company for fiscal year 2024, stating that these “material weaknesses” could potentially lead to misstatement in accounting aspects, including operating expenses, trade payables and expense account balances.
In its audit report, however, Deloitte had also said that these material weaknesses did not impact its opinion on the consolidated financials.
Bengaluru-based VerSe Innovation, which has raised over $2 billion in funds since being founded, is backed by the likes of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund, James Murdoch’s private investment firm Lupa Systems, and Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners). It last raised $805 million in a funding round led by CPPIB in 2022, valuing it at nearly $5 billion.
“VerSe has built a business of considerable scale in India’s digital landscape. With that scale comes the responsibility to ensure that governance systems, financial controls and risk oversight keep pace with the growth. Strong institutions are built not only on innovation, but on discipline and accountability,” Ramesh said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the board and management team to further embed these principles and help shape a governance framework that supports sustained, responsible growth”.
Apart from Ramesh, and VerSe founders Umang Bedi and Virendra Gupta, the company’s board counts Z47’s Vikram Vaidyanathan, Lupa Systems’ Nitin Kukreja, CPPIB’s Prakul Kaushiva, Belgian investor Sofina’s Yana Kachurina, Carlyle Group’s Neeraj Bharadwaj, Alpha Wave Global’s Utsav Mitra and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s Deepak Dara as directors, according to information sourced from the Registrar of Companies.
“Strong governance and financial discipline are fundamental to building a company that stands the test of time… As VerSe continues to mature and sharpen its focus on sustainable growth, his (Ramesh’s) perspective will be instrumental in strengthening our governance standards and reinforcing stakeholder confidence,” Bedi said in the statement.
