Tag: ethos

  • Ethos appoints Vijay Ratnam as India’s managing director

    Ethos appoints Vijay Ratnam as India’s managing director

    Mumbai: Ethos, the number one online life insurance provider in the U.S. today announces the appointment of Vijay Ratnam as the new India managing director. In this role, Vijay will lead the company’s organizational culture, strategic resource management and planning for growth and expansion in India.

    Vijay has over three decades of experience in the tech and IT industry across leading companies in India and overseas. He has been deeply involved in mentoring talent and talent management, as well as collaborating across departments, all with an eye on keeping organizational processes efficient and effective.

    Vijay spent more than a decade operating and managing in the tech sector across companies in the U.S. Prior to joining Ethos, Vijay held leadership positions at Cohesity, Dgraph Labs, ThoughtSpot, Citrix, NetScaler and Oracle among others.

    Ethos CEO Peter Colis said, “Last year Ethos established its India footprint and launched a full-stack office in Bengaluru. We have onboarded a team of high-quality tech talent that is contributing to our overall product innovation, new product launches, and customer experience. The response has been remarkable, and we are excited to see the progress made so far.”

    “Our plan is to continue to grow our world-class Engineering and Product teams in India by leveraging the incredible pool of technical talent available locally, and Vijay will be instrumental in helping us achieve this. Ethos India is a strong component of our global workforce, representing nearly all parts of our business. Together, we are poised to achieve remarkable milestones and contribute to Ethos’ continued success on the global stage.”

    Ethos India managing director Vijay Ratnam said, “I am thrilled to join the team and embark on this exciting journey at Ethos India. What began as a modest team in 2022 has now evolved into a significant force. India hosts one of the world’s largest reservoirs of tech and analytics talent. Our strategic vision involves establishing a significant business delivery team in India and assembling a cadre of specialists. We aim to achieve our mission of making life insurance accessible and affordable for all, positively impacting the lives of millions.”

    Ethos follows a technology-first approach that integrates complex decision flows with a radically simple consumer experience, to get high-quality insurance closer to its customers. In just a short time, the company has become the insurtech leader that continues to transform the life insurance space across the U.S. Headquartered in Austin, it has employees in key technology and startup hubs including Bengaluru, San Francisco, Seattle, Singapore and more.

    With nearly 95 per cent instant approvals, Ethos has been growing at a significant rate and increasing its year-over-year momentum, and now aims to further expand its technology and product offerings by capitalising on the vast tech, IT, and data analytics talent pool available in India.

    As an insurtech company, Ethos has secured significant funding from leading investors in the U.S. and continues to gain customer trust with its unique modern tech approach. Ethos was founded with the goal to simplify estate-related decisions and provide life insurance online in the U.S. Ethos has raised over $400 million from an all-star cast of investors, including – Softbank Vision Fund 2; Sequoia Capital; Accel; GV (formerly Google Ventures); General Catalyst; Jay-Z’s Roc Nation; and the investment vehicles of stars Will Smith and Robert Downey Jr. In 2022, Ethos acquired Tomorrow Ideas and was able to fully integrate its critical financial instruments such as legal wills and trusts, free for its insurance customers, into the Ethos platform. 
     

  • Ethos eyeing television as a part of mass media communication mix

    Ethos eyeing television as a part of mass media communication mix

    BENGALURU: Indian chain of luxury watch studios Ethos Limited (Ethos) is looking at television commercials as a part of its mass media communications mix during the next fiscal. The company is considering business news channels such as NDTV Profit as well as some niche channels. Ethos is an authorised retailer of over 65 luxury watch brands.

    The company plans to up by around 50 per cent its media spends revealed Ethos associate director Manoj Gupta to www.indiantelevision.com. “We will start in a small way, and gradually up our presence on television,” revealed Gupta.

    Industry sources peg Ethos spends between Rs 7 to 10 crore per year, this includes contributions from the major brands that it sells. At present, Ethos uses print, outdoor and in-house quarterly publication Ethos Summit, besides the digital online medium, which has seen more than three lakh unique visitors per month to its portal claims Gupta.

    So far, its media planning has been done in-house. Ethos is having discussions with a couple of media buying agencies in Mumbai and will chalk out its media buying plans’ once it picks a suitable partner. While most of its creative work is done in conjunction with the brands, a lot of the work is done by a Delhi based creative agency Scribbles.

    “The average price of a fashion watch in India would be between Rs 15,000 to 20,000, a premium watch would cost about Rs 1 to Rs 1.25 lakhs, while a luxury watch would cost Rs.7 lakh upwards,” informed Gupta.

    Ethos estimates the size of the fashion, premium and luxury watches at Rs 1500 crore and expects it to grow to Rs 4,000 crore over the next three years. The company has 41 outlets in 12 cities of India, of which about eight sell fashion watches, about seven luxury watches. It also has single brand watch stores for brands such as Rolex, Omega and Swatches.

    Ethos generated a revenue of Rs 210 crore, last year and Gupta is confident of a 25 to 30 per cent growth in revenue this fiscal.

    Gupta was in Bengaluru for the launch of a range of core and professional Rolex watches, earlier launched at Baselworld 2013, one of which costs Rs 44.68 lakh.