Reliance-backed Jio Platforms has named Pankaj Pawar as its new chief executive officer, replacing Kiran Thomas, according to draft papers filed for the company’s initial public offering. The draft red herring prospectus, submitted to the Securities and Exchange Board of India in June, shows Thomas stepped down as CEO on March 23, with Pawar taking over the following day.
Pawar, 53, continues to serve as managing director of Reliance Jio Infocomm, the group’s telecom arm. The filing states he has been with the Reliance Group since 2000 and has close to three decades of experience building and scaling large consumer and digital services businesses.
Thomas, who previously served as president of Reliance Industries, no longer appears among Jio Platforms’ key managerial personnel in the draft prospectus, despite representing the company at every annual general meeting since its 2016 launch. Jio did not respond to a request for comment on the leadership change.
The board of Jio Platforms will be chaired by Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani as a non-executive director, the filing shows. Akash Ambani is named managing director, while Manoj Modi joins as non-executive director, alongside Isha Ambani and Anant Ambani as non-executive directors.
Jio Platforms is seeking to raise about $4 billion, or roughly ₹37,700 crore, through the IPO, valuing the company at close to $137 billion. The draft prospectus outlines a fresh issue of up to 27 crore new shares, representing about 2.9 per cent of its post-issue equity capital, with the final price to be set through a book-building process.
If completed, the offering would surpass Hyundai Motor India’s ₹27,870 crore IPO from 2024 as the largest in Indian history. Jio Platforms spans telecommunications, digital services, enterprise solutions and emerging technology ventures, with its Reliance Jio Infocomm unit ranking as the world’s second-largest mobile operator by subscriber count. The company previously raised more than $20 billion in 2020 from investors including Meta, Google, KKR, Silver Lake and General Atlantic.