ONDC gets new CEO
ONDC appointed Vibhor Jain as its chief executive and managing director in a move the press frames as stabilising the organisation after recent upheaval. The hire was announced this week and the appointment is expected to reduce uncertainty about the network’s leadership and operating priorities as it seeks wider adoption. (retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com)
Open Network for Digital Commerce just ended a year of interim leadership by making Vibhor Jain its full-time chief executive and managing director, with effect from April 7, 2026. Jain had been running the network as acting chief executive after the previous boss stepped down in April 2025. (economictimes.indiatimes.com, deccanherald.com) That sounds like a routine promotion until you remember what Open Network for Digital Commerce is trying to do. It is India’s government-backed attempt to make online shopping work more like email, where different apps and sellers can talk to each other instead of being locked inside one giant platform. (ondc.org, pib.gov.in) The idea is that a buyer can use one shopping app, a seller can use another service, and a logistics company can be a third player in the same transaction. Open Network for Digital Commerce says no single company has to control the full journey from search to payment to delivery. (ondc.org, ondc.org) India launched the network in April 2022 through the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, which sits inside the commerce ministry. The pitch was simple: millions of small merchants sell offline, but only a tiny fraction had reached e-commerce. (pib.gov.in, ondc.org) Open Network for Digital Commerce says its network now has more than 764,000 sellers and service providers across more than 616 cities. It also says users can shop through multiple buyer apps rather than one central marketplace. (ondc.org, retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com) The leadership wobble started on April 10, 2025, when founding chief executive Thampy Koshy stepped down after a three-year term. Around the same period, reports described a broader reshuffle at the organisation, which left Jain, then chief operating officer, holding the top job on an acting basis. (deccanherald.com, inc42.com) Jain is not an outside fixer brought in for a reset. Reports say he has been associated with Open Network for Digital Commerce for nearly five years and previously served as chief operating officer, which means the board chose continuity over a dramatic change in direction. (bfsi.eletsonline.com, ondc.org) That choice comes as the network is still trying to prove it can turn scale into a durable business. Businessworld reported that Open Network for Digital Commerce posted fiscal year 2025 revenue of Rs 33.41 crore and narrowed losses, while also starting to introduce fees in financial services such as mutual fund and credit transactions. (businessworld.in, ondc.org) It is also no longer just about food delivery and retail orders. The network has been pushing into financial products, and that changes the job of the chief executive from signing up merchants to managing a much more complicated set of rails, rules, and revenue lines. (ondc.org, ondc.org) So this appointment is less about a new face than about ending a placeholder era. After a year with an acting chief executive, Open Network for Digital Commerce now has one person formally in charge as it tries to turn a state-backed experiment into everyday shopping infrastructure. (economictimes.indiatimes.com, ondc.org)
