Grab CTO To Step Down

Grab, the Southeast Asia ride-hailing startup, is losing its Chief Technology Officer Theo Vassilakis, who said in a LinkedIn post that due to personal circumstance, he has to leave the region and spend most of the time in the south of China.

In the post, the CTO said he will transition to an advisor role at Grab as of June 30. He will continue to lead the charge in technology and will assist Grab with its search for a new group CTO based in Southeast Asia.

“Serving as a tech partner to tenacious entrepreneurs like @Anthony Tan and @Hooi Ling Tan has been a humbling but rewarding crash course in guiding execution while instilling core values in a rapidly growing company,” the executive wrote. “Looking back, I’m amazed by how much we achieved by focusing on outserving our customers, all in a relatively short time. From the historical Uber deal, to welcoming 1000 more techies in 2018 alone, to scaling our FinTech, food and express offerings, to launching our superapp, to the Grab Platform, to Grab Ventures like personal mobility devices, to infrastructure that enables our people to go faster, to fundraising, to partnerships, to joint ventures, to government and university collaborations, to benefits improvements for our driver partners, to renewed safety initiatives in all our countries, to more income opportunities for our agents on the ground, to working capital for our merchants, to giving back campaigns, etc. etc. etc.”

Vassilakis’ announcement comes as Grab is gearing up to raise an additional $2 billion in funding this year to bankroll its expansion. In an interview with Reuters earlier in April, Grab CEO Anthony Tan said the company expects to raise $6.5 billion in venture funding this year. The company already raised more than $4.5 billion.