A day after investors in the ailing ed-tech firm Byju voted for a leadership change. Byju Raveendran wrote a memo to staff indicating he will remain CEO and the management will remain unaltered, calling Friday’s EGM a “farce”.
The note to employees is significant because it comes after Byju’s shareholders. They (prominent investors) voted on Friday to remove Founder-CEO Raveendran and his family from the board. Concluding it to be “mismanagement and failures”. At what was once India’s hottest tech startup, the company resisted, calling the voting done in the absence of the founders invalid and ineffective.
He made an apology letter stating the issues
“I am writing to you as the CEO of our organization. Regardless of what you may have heard in the media, I remain CEO, management remains untouched, and the board remains intact,” he stated. The company refused to budge, claiming that the voting in the absence of the founders was invalid and ineffective.
Founder CEO Raveendran, his wife, and brother – the only three members of the company board. As of now – did not attend the EGM called by a group of six investors who jointly own more than 32% of Think & Learn (T&L), the company that administers the online tuition platform Byju’s.
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Outlining what he claimed were “key discrepancies” during the EGM meeting. He stated that the meeting was held without following the required procedure outlined in the legislation and the company’s Articles of Association. According to sources close to the investors, more than 60% of shareholders supported all seven motions. Which included dismissing the current management, restructuring the board, and conducting a third-party forensic inquiry into the company’s purchases.
Earlier last month, digital startup Byju announced the layoff of 5% of its 50,000 employees across several departments. The unicorn tech startup intends to lay off 2,500 people over the next six months, as part of its goal. To optimize the company’s spending and operational costs across divisions such as product, content, media, and technology. Byju’s has already begun the layoff process and has even requested that employees who are being put off serve a 15-day notice period.
