MUMBAI: Fintech startup and credit card challenger slice on Friday announced the appointment of Siva Kumar Tangudu as the company’s new chief technology officer.

An IIT-Mumbai alumni, Tangudu brings with him leadership expertise of over 15 years across senior & pivotal roles at Myntra, HackerRank, Microsoft, & Oracle to name a few. He also comes with an entrepreneurial background, having co-founded a Hyderabad-based startup, Kawanan Labs. Tangudu has been an early-stage investor in slice, witnessing the company’s growth at a personal level. In this role, he will be responsible for strengthening slice’s technological arm and further expanding the company’s offerings, the startup said.

slice founder & CEO Rajan Bajaj said “Siva brings with him a wealth of consumer tech experience and we are thrilled to have him on-board. He has a great history of leading engineering teams at some of the best tech companies, as well as his own startup. There are some very exciting things in the pipeline at slice - including the launch of a game-changing rewards system as well as UPI on our platform. Siva’s expertise will be critical in helping us move closer to our mission of building the raddest payment experience for millennials and GenZ.”

On his new role, Tangudu said “This is the best time to be at slice. Rajan and his team are building a phenomenal product that essentially challenges many traditional practices in the finance sector, and it’s thrilling to be a part of it. I look forward to building a stellar team here and bringing forth a tech-first approach to solving some interesting and hard problems in this space.”

In the last few quarters, slice has witnessed a significant growth in terms of consumers and the size of the team. Despite the pandemic, it continued hiring and strengthening its leadership team, grew six times in FY-21 and recorded a 40-50 per cent increase in average customer spends, said the company.