SoftBank Group Corp said on Tuesday president and chief operating officer Nikesh Arora has decided to resign from the company, in a sudden end to the India-born executive’s tenure at the Japanese telecom and Internet conglomerate, VVCircle reported.
This has come just after Arora got a clean chit on allegations raised by unknown investors represented by a New York law firm after a panel of its independent directors reviewed those complaints.
SoftBank has said in a statement that the decision comes from Son’s desire to stay at the helm of the company he founded, for the next few more years. “Son’s intention was to keep leading the Group in various aspects for the time being, while Arora wished to start taking over the lead in a few years’ time. The difference of expected timelines between the two led to Arora’s resignation” SoftBank said.
Arora also said on Twitter that Son wanted to continue as the CEO for five to 10 years and that he himself didn’t want to wait that long.
SoftBank said Arora will cease to be a director on Wednesday at the conclusion of the company’s 36th annual general meeting of shareholders. The company will withdraw a part of the agenda for the meeting that included Arora’s re-election to the board. Arora will move to an advisory role at SoftBank.
Arora had come to SoftBank from Google where he was chief business officer and had joined SoftBank in September 2014 as vice chairman of the group and CEO of its subsidiary SoftBank Internet & Media Inc. He was named president and COO a year ago. Son subsequently named him his likely successor.
Arora led SoftBank’s investments in India which includied e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal, cab aggregator Ola, realty portal Housing.com and hotel booking site Oyo.