Uber India Appoints Shirish Andhare as the Head of Product and Growth

Uber, the ridesharing app that is redefining urban mobility across the world, organized a Tech Day in New Delhi, to bring to the forefront the technology that powers the Uber app. It provided a platform to highlight India-centric innovations and the role technology plays to make the experiences as seamless as possible, for both riders and drivers.

The company also announced the appointment of Shirish Andhare as Head of Product and Growth, Uber India. In his role, he will lead the way to build innovative products keeping in mind the diversity and vastness of India as a market. He also brings with him a depth of experience in product development, where his forte has been his ability to understand markets and create offerings that provide smart solutions through technological innovations across a variety of domains - from voice, web, and mobile applications to security, and payments.

The event saw the ‘Techies’ at Uber, Apurva Dalal, Head of Engineering, Uber India, Vinay Ramani, Head of Global Growth, Uber and Shirish Andhare, the newly appointed Head of Products and Growth, give an in-depth perspective on the technology that powers the app and what happens when riders push a button to get a ride.

Vinay Ramani, Head of Global Growth, Uber India said, “As a brand we have always focused on constantly innovating to change lives for the better. India as a country poses some unique challenges like connectivity, navigation and smartphone penetration. Currently, our product experts and engineering teams in India and around the world are working on innovative solutions that will help improve the overall rider and driver experience. In several cases, these solutions are India-first initiatives, for example, we launched Cash as a payment option and we then extended this to global markets, like the UK, and several South East Asian markets.”

Apurva Dalal, Head of Engineering, Uber India, further explained, “We are incredibly passionate about India and are still identifying the opportunities wherein we can provide innovative solutions for both riders and drivers. Engineering, we believe, is core to Uber, which is why we established Asia’s first Engineering Centre in Bangalore. At this centre, we are focused on developing smart engineering and technology solutions for drivers, fleet managers and riders that enhances the overall ride experience. Going further, we are looking at developing our engineering brains and strengthening the team at the centre to come up with creative solutions to close the gaps within the overall experience.”

Shirish Andhare, Head of Products, Uber India, spoke about how Uber’s technology creates great experiences - “We aim to create a magical experience by marrying empathy with our technological expertise. We build these experiences through careful listening which involves several data driven studies where we engage very deeply with our driver partners and study rider behaviour. The product that a rider or our driver partner uses has been designed to offer a seamless ride. For instance, shortcuts, saved places, calendar Integration, vehicle view, request a ride for others are additions to the App that make sure that our users do not face issues at any of the touch points.”