Pankaj Chaddah

The co-founder who helped turn a Bain office menu page into Zomato, then left at the top to build a wellness company and back education.

Born: Delhi, India
Known for: Co-founding Zomato; co-founding Shyft (formerly Mindhouse)
Industry: Food tech, wellness, education
Education: B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi (2007)

Early life and IIT Delhi

Pankaj Chaddah grew up in Delhi in a middle-class family and went to Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram. He joined IIT Delhi in 2003 and graduated in 2007 with a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering. The sources do not agree on his exact year of birth, so the page leaves it out. IIT Delhi is also where he got to know Deepinder Goyal, who was a couple of batches ahead of him.

Bain and the menu cards

After graduating, Pankaj joined Bain & Company in Delhi as an analyst and spent a little over two years there. In the Bain office the printed restaurant menus were kept in one place, so ordering lunch meant queuing. He and Deepinder scanned the menus and put them on the company intranet, and colleagues kept using it. That showed there was something worth building for people outside Bain too. He was about 22 when they started.

Foodiebay becomes Zomato

On 10 July 2008 the two launched a restaurant-listing website called Foodiebay while still working at Bain. They quit their jobs in November 2009 to work on it full time and incorporated the company in January 2010. The site was renamed Zomato in November 2010. Pankaj took on the operations side of the company, and many profiles describe him as its Chief Operating Officer, though some describe the role differently.

A decade of building

During his years at Zomato the company spread across Indian cities and then abroad, reaching more than 20 countries by 2015. It bought Urbanspoon in 2015, started food delivery in India the same year, and launched the Zomato Gold membership in 2017 (later renamed Zomato Pro). By 2018 Zomato had reached a valuation of around US$1 billion. Pankaj was one of the people running the day-to-day work behind this growth, while Deepinder was the public face and handled strategy and fundraising.

Leaving in 2018

Pankaj stepped away from an active role in Zomato in early 2018, after about ten years. Contemporary reports put the date at the end of March 2018, while some later profiles say May. Deepinder announced it on the company blog and called Pankaj the keeper of his conscience. He said Pankaj would stay on the board and that Zomato would mark 10 July, the company's founding day, as “Pankaj Day” with an annual town hall. Reports at the time also said his role had been changing since 2015, but Deepinder said he was still very active in the company. Because he left before the 2021 IPO, he missed the company's later growth in Blinkit and its stock market debut as an operating executive, though accounts say he kept his founder shares.

Mindhouse and Shyft

In 2019 Pankaj co-founded a wellness company called Mindhouse with Pooja Khanna. It was later renamed Shyft. The company offers wellness and mental-health services, which is a long way from restaurant listings, and shows he was willing to start again in a new field instead of staying in food.

Education and investing

Pankaj is a founding trustee of Plaksha University, a technology-focused university in Chandigarh, and is also described as an angel investor in startups. He keeps a low public profile and has no public X account.

Timeline

2003Joins IIT Delhi.
2007Graduates in Mechanical Engineering and joins Bain & Company.
2008Launches Foodiebay with Deepinder Goyal on 10 July.
2009Quits Bain to work on the company full time.
2010Foodiebay is renamed Zomato.
2015Zomato buys Urbanspoon and starts food delivery in India.
2018Steps back from his active role at Zomato.
2019Co-founds Mindhouse, later Shyft.
2021Zomato lists on the BSE and NSE.

Leadership lessons

The quieter co-founder can be just as important. Pankaj's strength was making the company work day to day.
Start with a small, real problem. A lunch queue at work gave the founders their first users.
Know when your chapter is complete. He left after a decade, before the IPO, to start something new.
Skills carry across fields. Operations, products and customers matter as much in wellness as in food.
Build for the long term. His work with Plaksha University extends his interest beyond a single company.

The takeaway: a great company needs both a visible founder and someone who makes it run. Pankaj's path from a Bain lunch queue to a decade at Zomato, and then to wellness and education, shows that a co-founder can leave a lasting mark without being the one in the spotlight.

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Sources

Written from public information, including The Founder Nation, FounderVox, Silicon Valley Investclub, Top Mag and Wikipedia, with his 2018 departure checked against contemporary reports from Inc42 and Entrackr. The sources disagree on some details, such as his year of birth, the exact month he left (March or May 2018) and the title he held, so the more specific or contemporary source is followed where they differ. FounderVox largely repeats The Founder Nation, and Top Mag contains claims I could not confirm, so those were left out, including its net worth figure. His personal life is also left out because the sources conflict.