Furthering its push into the digital world.
Southeast Asia- based integrated car e-commerce platform, Carsome Group has appointed Vishnu Nambiar as its latest 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 integrated and 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.
The car platform company is making a further push into the digital sphere, in mid-July Carsome entered into an agreement to acquire 19.9% of ASX-listed iCar Asia Ltd (“iCar Asia”) from Catcha Group. Carsome and Catcha Group have also made a joint proposal to the independent directors of iCar Asia to acquire the balance of 80.1 per cent of iCar from its shareholders. The total transaction is estimated to be worth more than US$200 million.
Carsome Group is the market leader in the online used car buying and selling platform across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore, while iCar Asia is the leading listings and content automotive platform across those same markets. Carsome and iCar Asia, combined, offers an integrated automotive ecosystem – for dealers to source, advertise and sell cars; and, for consumers to research, sell and buy cars – in a region that trades over US$55 billion[3] worth of automobiles annually.
