Headline

Scaling Cities at Rapido | Marketplace P&L, Revenue and Growth | ex-Zomato Zonal Head | ex-Deloitte

About

I build things in cities. Usually someone else’s, occasionally my own. Professionally, the last few years have been spent at the intersection of strategy and execution in consumer marketplaces — the kind where the gap between a good decision and a bad one is measured in thousands of orders and a few uncomfortable conversations with your P&L. I’ve worked across unit economics, team building, monetization, and the kind of operational firefighting that doesn’t make it into case studies. I like problems that are structurally messy, geographically specific, and just ambiguous enough that nobody’s sure whose job they are. Currently, I’m building something new in mobility — earlier stage, faster pace, higher likelihood of things breaking in interesting ways. It’s the natural next move for someone who gets more interested when the map runs out. On the side, I’m building a community from the ground up in a space I care about — slowly, deliberately, city by city. Different problem, same instincts. I write occasionally about operating at ground level — the decisions, the data, and the parts that don’t fit neatly into either.

Location

Kochi

AI stack

antigravity

claude code

codex

grok

Vercel AI SDK

Work experience

Manager 2 - City Operations and Growth at Rapido, Apr 2026 - Present · 6 mo, Kochi, Nashik & Nagpur, Own the P&L for the KNN cluster: Kochi, Nashik and Nagpur, across bike, auto and cab, at around 75,000 net orders a day. Revenue and cost lines, with spend authority. Three city leads and their field teams report in. • Built the cluster's weekly P&L tracker from nothing and wrote the SQL behind it, covering three cities and ten service lines. There was no tracker and no analyst before it. • Built the captain activation analytics that reframed the cluster's largest growth problem from acquisition volume to first-ride ignition, and built the operating plan against that diagnosis. • Cleared quarterly ride targets on Nashik auto and Nagpur auto, and took Nashik bike from a standing start to 2,500 rides a day. • Stood up a field sales channel across all three cities and grew seven captain community channels, largely from zero, to 6,000+ followers. • Own legal and regulatory compliance across the cluster, through active enforcement, union protests and pending state regulation.

Zonal Head | Supply at Zomato, Mar 2025 - Mar 2026 · 1 yr 1 mo, Kochi, • General management of Kochi marketplace economics with end-to-end ownership of revenue levers (ads, commissions, discount policy) across ~450 partners and a multi–crore-per-day GMV base (₹3–4 crore/day; high nine-figure monthly GMV); accountable for growth, monetization, and market health. • Delivered a step-change in profitability: expanded per-order contribution margin by ~40% while holding the total discount pool steady and sustaining double-digit order growth. • Modernized monetization: scaled run-rate ads revenue and lifted advertiser penetration from ~55% to ~80%, driving higher spend/merchant and stronger ROI-linked paybacks. • Optimized discount mix: shifted investment from Zomato-funded to merchant-funded offers without dampening demand, improving take-rate and promo ROI across priority micro-markets. • Instituted a data-driven operating rhythm: built the zone’s analytics backbone (Metabase on Trino/Presto) and a weekly cross-functional business review unifying demand, supply readiness, promo ROI, and CM as north-star KPIs; partnered closely with central pricing, product, and marketing to deploy thresholds/guardrails and scale winning playbooks. • Built and led a six-person KAM organization; hired/replaced to raise performance standards, improve ramp, and increase upsell/retention across flagship Kerala brands (e.g., Paragon, Chicking). • National recognition: selected as an Alpha Zone Lead (top 1% in India) and awarded the Ambassador Award at the Gurugram leadership offsite.

Growth | Strategy | Sales at AIonOS, Dec 2023 - Mar 2025 · 1 y 3 mo, Gurugram, • Founder’s Office Associate reporting to CEO (first 6 months) and then Chief Business Officer; embedded with CXO staff to stand up GTM, presales, and inside sales during hyper‑growth from 5 to ~300 FTEs across SEA and Europe. • Co-authored and supported the approved JV business case with Indosat (Indonesia’s largest telco); entity formed with hiring and product work initiated, establishing a beachhead for ASEAN AI services expansion. • Led market research and competitive intelligence across TTLH and TMT; produced executive-ready account dossiers and board materials for priority markets (Singapore, UK) and enterprise prospects (e.g., European hospitality brands, OTAs, aerospace/eVTOL). • Built the inside sales engine from scratch: hired and enabled 6–7 SDRs, instituted an Excel-based CRM motion, and drove 5–6 outbound meetings/week on average, fueling early pipeline for AI/ML services, data platforms, GenAI, and managed services. • Supported presales and bid management on $15M+ in opportunities, including a $574K ML services proposal, and implemented templates/automation to cut proposal turnarounds by ~50%. - Structured and modeled performance-based commercial constructs, including a multi‑year warranty framework initially contracted with IndiGo Airlines (India) for contact center services [note: later did not proceed to scale], informing subsequent risk‑sharing proposals. • Partnered with CEO/CBO on M&A diligence for ~3 targets; built financial models and synergy cases, with at least one progressing to term sheet/close. • Drove ISO audit readiness [standards not specified: 27001/9001], coordinating documentation, legal instruments (NDAs/MSAs), and cross‑functional compliance to enable enterprise sales. • Played a key role in senior hiring across US/UK/SEA (e.g., SVP Transportation/Logistics/Hospitality, Indonesia Country Manager, Delivery leaders), standardizing materials and interview workflows to accelerate leadership onboarding.

Senior Associate at Deloitte, May 2023 - Oct 2023 · 5 mo, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · Hybrid, • Led the audit execution for a >$360M South African Private Equity firm specializing in Property investments. Tested financial areas valued at over $200M, including Cash, Account Receivables, Account Payables, Accrued Expenses, and Reporting Items. • Conducted audits for an S&P 400 client with a $2B annual turnover. Assessed Internal controls across 8 divisions for Design & Implementation and Operating Effectiveness. • Executed financial risk analytics for a multibillion-dollar global leader in energy markets. Generated insights for high-risk audit areas, prepared guided risk assessments, and conducted data analysis using Excel for Partner Review. • Specialized in accounting for and auditing Emerging-Growth Companies (EGC’s) with complex valuations and goodwill estimations. • Reviewed SOC Reports, Process Flow Diagrams, Process Narratives, and Trial Balances for Technology and emerging growth companies. • Proactively engaged in client interactions and walkthroughs, a responsibility exceeding my level. • Mentored peers and summer interns, supporting Seniors in various areas.

Associate at Deloitte, Sep 2021 - May 2023 · 1 yr 9 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · Hybrid

Education

Bachelor of Commerce - BCom, madras christian college

Post Graduate Diploma in Management, SPJIMR SP Jain Institute of Management & Research

Public links

github: https://github.com/kalarikkalmathew-cmyk