“What I’m more worried about is who is the next capable guy to lead the business, especially as a partner who is dependent on them. What brought them to the leading position was their execution. Now, what will allow them to stay on top is execution—if you do not have the right people for the right kind of execution, it is worrying,” said the owner of a mid-sized restaurant chain that works with multiple food aggregators. While such changes are “temporary”, “I think somebody or the other will step up to tackle it, but this temporary pain is what I’m worried about”, he added.

Zomato, which was listed on the stock exchanges in 2021, has seen several high-profile exits in recent times. Its co-founder and chief technology officer Gunjan Patidar resigned earlier this week. In November, it saw the exit of another co-founder Mohit Gupta, besides the head of new initiatives Rahul Ganjoo and vice president, global growth Siddharth Jhawar.

Zomato’s deputy chief financial officer Nitin Savara had resigned in August. Gaurav Gupta, who headed the supply vertical, resigned after six years in September 2021.

Zomato did not respond to emailed queries.

According to a person familiar with the company’s plans, it may scout for internal candidates to move up to leadership roles. For instance, Kamyani Sidhwani was appointed as the head of Zomato Legends, the inter-city food delivery service, earlier led by Jhawar.

Meanwhile, changes are underway at the company. In June it announced the acquisition of quick-commerce company Blinkit, which closed in August. It has also experimented with 10-minute delivery, but the pilot was eventually scaled back. In August, it announced the launch of Intercity Legends.

In December, Zomato announced a round of layoffs across its technology, product and marketing teams.

“I don’t think it’s a worry for food companies working with Zomato as everyone believes that it is here to stay, but internal restructuring is possible,” another executive at a large fast-food chain said requesting anonymity.

Management changes happen routinely at Zomato, the person said. The company is now chasing faster growth, pushing to execute faster and pass on the baton to younger talent in the organization. However, this is one of the most significant rounds of exits seen by the company at the top.

In a letter to shareholders on 10 November, Zomato’s founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said while the company’s food delivery business has been growing and steadily moving towards profitability, there was room for the business to grow much faster.

“I don’t know if I can attribute this to the macro environment, primarily because I know for a fact that we could have innovated and executed better in the last couple of months. The restaurant and food delivery industry in India is still nascent, and we need to relentlessly execute to tap into the big opportunity. I don’t want macro headwinds to be an excuse for us to innovate less.”

In fact, in the same post, Goyal added that in a people-dependent business, he believes in a high bar on culture. “We should empower our team members who have more fire in their belly, and let go of people who don’t.”

In the first half of 2022, Zomato’s food delivery business grew 55%, Jefferies said in a report on citing third-party data. “Zomato averaged at 55% share, which is based on our understanding, is the highest share for the company. Zomato recently reported a strong improvement in profitability as standalone company losses reduced to ₹600 million. However, this came at the cost of growth, also partially due to a tough macro,” Jefferies said in a note on 23 November.

However, with the dine-in business picking up sharply, online food deliveries have tapered. “There will be no business impact—it will all depend on the second-level teams. If there is a strong second-level team, my guess is nothing should change. Such changes have happened earlier too—in the past what had happened was one function, such as delivery, was picked and changes were made; however, now, the entire leadership team has moved out,” another former Zomato employee said on the condition of anonymity.