Nikesh Arora walked down as President and COO of SoftBank Group

Nikesh Arora on 21 June 2016 resigned as the Representative Director, President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of SoftBank Group (SBG), a Japanese company.

Simultaneously, he will also step down from the Chairmanship at Yahoo Japan, a company in which SoftBank has a 36.4 percent stake, as well as the Director of Sprint, an acquisition of SBG.

However, Arora will assume an Advisory Role effective 1 July 2016.

About Nikesh Arora
• Arora joined SoftBank Group from Google where he was the Chief Business Officer in September 2014.
• He took the position of Vice Chairman of SBG and CEO of SB Group US, Inc in September 2014.
• In June 2015, he assumed the position of Representative Director and Director of SBG.
• During his tenure, SoftBank invested in a set of growth-stage companies in India such as Snapdeal, Ola, Oyo, Grofers and Housing.com.
• Arora is one of the highest paid corporate executives who took home a pay packet of 135 million US dollars in 2014-15.
• Arora is an alumni of IIT-BHU, Varanasi and Northeastern University (MBA).

Reason behind Nikesh Arora's Resignation
His resignation came a day after Softbank announced that an independent committee has found that the investors’ allegations against Nikesh Arora were without merit. Following this, the CEO of SBG Masayoshi Son, who was expected to step down, announced that he will remain at the helm.