upGrad, the integrated skilling and lifelong learning major, has appointed Deepesh Dhakad as chief product and technology officer (CPTO).
An alumnus of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad from where he completed a BTech in Information Technology, Dhakad went on to obtain an MBA in IT Leadership Management from IIT Bombay-Shailesh J Mehta School of Management.
Dhakad served as a subject matter expert at Amdocs for over a year and a half in the initial years of his career. He then joined Cerillion Technologies as senior analyst programmer, in January of 2008. A year and a half later, he moved to General Electric as information management leadership programme intern. He was then absorbed by GE as product manager-information management leadership programme. Two years into this role, he was promoted to product manager, leading product development practice for business functions.
Deepesh Dhakad’s next stop was Flipkart where he played product manager from 2014 to 2016. Working out of Bangalore, he defined and built quick commerce (Q-commerce) business ecosystem branded as Flipkart Nearby.
February of 2020 saw him begin a long association with Amazon, as senior product manager for four years. He was elevated to principal product manager, growth and new customer acquisition in February of 2020. Over a year into this role, he was promoted to senior manager-product management technology, in March of 2021.
After a successful tenure of over five years with Amazon, Deepesh Dhakad joined Unacademy as senior vice president-product and tech. A year and a half later, he moved to Games24x7 as vice president-product, design and analytics.
Now, in his new role at upGrad, he will be oversee upGrad’s end-to-end product, design, and technology ecosystem across its learner and enterprise verticals, with a focus on innovation, scalability and global user experience.
In Dhakad’s words, “As learning becomes increasingly borderless and outcome-driven, our focus will be on designing intelligent, AI-native systems that personalise learner journeys and deliver measurable results for both individuals and enterprises. For me, this is also about empowering our internal teams, across product, design, and engineering to innovate boldly, collaborate deeply, and build world-class experiences at scale. The opportunity to shape how professionals learn, grow, and stay employable worldwide is both exciting and transformative.”
Amit Mehta, CHRO, upGrad, is relying on Dhakad’s “strong experience in building high-growth, tech-led ecosystems” to “further strengthen our ability to deliver outcome-driven learning at scale, accelerating our global strategy for the next phase of workforce skilling”.
HRKatha wishes Deepesh Dhakad all the best!
