Root Inc.'s chief technology officer is resigning after exactly four months on the job, and another member of the C-suite is stepping down after four years.
Anirban Kundu, CTO since June 21, notified the digital auto insurer that he will leave on Oct. 29 "to pursue an outside opportunity," according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
Kumi Walker, chief business development and strategy officer, announced his departure earlier this week on LinkedIn. A board director on organizations including Olive AI Inc. and COTA, he changed his job description to "technology executive/advisor/investor."
Root's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Matt Bonakdarpour, chief data science and analytics officer, will lead engineering as well during the search for a new CTO.
Kundu had replaced founding CTO Dan Manges, a serial entrepreneur who left eight months after the Columbus company's IPO. Manges is co-founder with CEO Alex Timm.
Walker appears to be following a common pattern in startups: Entrepreneurial-minded employees leave after an acquisition or IPO to build anew.
"I feel extremely proud of everything my team has accomplished and the impact we’ve made," Walker said in his LinkedIn post. "I wanted to build the best business team in the world with the best culture inside of a company that mattered. ... I built a culture where we would be challenged, supported and welcomed. ... I am so grateful."
Root Inc. (Nasdaq:ROOT) is the parent of Root Insurance Co., which uses machine learning and movement data from the driver's phone to help set premiums. It had Ohio's largest-ever IPO, but the stock price has fallen since then. The 6-year-old company is not yet profitable as it rapidly expands in new markets.
Based in the San Francisco Bay area, Kundu had joined Root from Postmates, where he was senior vice president of engineering until the delivery service's acquisition by Uber. Before that he was CTO at Evernote, leading development of infrastructure for the digital organization and storage tool.
The CTO "leads product engineering, technology infrastructure, data management, and information security," according to Kundu's bio, still currently on the leadership page of Root's website. His LinkedIn profile does not list a new position.
Kundu forfeits his stock awards upon departure, the filing said. In July Kundu reported to the SEC that he was granted 2.3 million restricted stock units that were to be vested in stages starting after one year. That would be worth $12.4 million based on Wednesday's closing share price.
Company officials were not immediately available for comment. A message seeking comment was sent to Kundu via LinkedIn.
