He earlier founded Kashmi, a P2P payments and digital banking platform with operations in Sri Lanka and Singapore

Alibaba-owned South Asian e-commerce company Daraz has announced the appointment of Rakhil Fernando as Managing Director for Sri Lanka, effective 1 June 2019.

In his role, Fernando will oversee the business strategy and operations of the Daraz in the island country.

“The team has accomplished a lot since Daraz launched in this market, with much of its growth in no small part due to the acquisition by Alibaba last year; within the last 12 months, Daraz has accelerated to the number one position in domestic e-commerce in Sri Lanka. My hope is to maintain this great trajectory, making e-commerce more accessible to all Sri Lankans,” said Fernando.

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A veteran of the startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia, Fernando was previously Director of Innovation for MetLife;s innovation in Asia, called LumenLab. Before that, he spent many years in the Singapore startup ecosystem, where his last role was founder and CEO of Kashmi, a peer to peer payments and digital first banking platform. Through his career, Fernando has also worked at Credit Suisse, Coutts & Co Bank, Batey Advertising in various roles.

Daraz is a leading online marketplace with operations in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and provides 10 million products in more than 100-plus categories. The company has built its own logistics company specifically designed for e-commerce operations, called Daraz Express.

In 2018, Daraz was acquired by Alibaba Group from Rocket Internet. As part of the Alibaba ecosystem, Daraz is leveraging Alibaba’s global leadership and experience in technology, online commerce, mobile payments, and logistics to drive growth in its markets.

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