Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Eternal CEO Deepinder Goyal Steps Down, Dhindsa In
The GMA Admin
Eternal founder Deepinder Goyal will exit the CEO role on Feb 1, 2026, becoming Vice Chairman as Blinkit chief Albinder Dhindsa takes charge as Group CEO.
Eternal has announced a major leadership transition: founder-CEO Deepinder Goyal will step down as Group CEO on February 1, 2026, with Blinkit chief Albinder Singh Dhindsa stepping in as the new CEO while Goyal moves to a strategic Vice Chairman role.
Eternal’s Leadership Reset: From Founder-Led To “Operator-Led” Future
Eternal Ltd, the listed parent of Zomato and Blinkit, has unveiled a significant top-deck transition that will reshape how the group is run and how future growth bets are managed. In a regulatory filing and accompanying shareholder communication released alongside its Q3 FY26 results for the quarter ended 31 December 2025, the company said founder, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal has tendered his resignation from his executive roles, effective close of business on 1 February 2026.
Subject to shareholder approval, Goyal will move to the board as Vice Chairman for a five-year term, while Blinkit co-founder and CEO Albinder Singh Dhindsa has been elevated as Eternal’s new Group CEO and designated Key Managerial Personnel from 1 February onwards. The move marks a shift from a founder-led operating structure to an “operator-led” model anchored by Dhindsa, even as Goyal stays deeply involved in long-term strategy, culture and governance.
Why Deepinder Goyal Is Stepping Down Now
In a detailed post on X and a letter to Eternal’s shareholders, Goyal framed his decision as a considered transition driven by the need to separate high-risk experimentation from the discipline required of a listed consumer-internet group. He said he has increasingly found himself drawn to a new set of ideas that involve “significantly higher-risk exploration and experimentation” which, in his view, are better pursued outside a public company like Eternal.
Goyal made it clear that these ideas do not fit within Eternal’s current strategic scope, and that forcing them into the group would dilute focus instead of creating value. He emphasized that Eternal, as a diversified platform operating food delivery and quick-commerce businesses, must remain “focused and disciplined” while exploring new growth areas that are directly relevant to its existing lines of business. In his communication, he also pointed to the heightened expectations—legal and otherwise—on a public company CEO in India, noting that such a role demands singular focus rather than a split between core operations and personal high-risk experimentation.
Goyal’s New Role: Vice Chairman With Long-Term Mandate
While Goyal is stepping away from day-to-day operational control, he is not exiting Eternal. The board has recommended his appointment as Director and Vice Chairman, a role that will commence after shareholder approval and is expected to run for a five-year term. In this capacity, Goyal will continue to shape Eternal’s strategic direction, culture, leadership development, and governance, reinforcing the institutional backbone he has built over the years.
Goyal underlined that this is “a change in title, not in commitment towards outcomes,” calling Eternal his “life’s work” and reiterating that his financial future remains meaningfully tied to the company. As part of the leadership transition, he has also opted to return all his unvested ESOPs to the company’s ESOP pool, thereby expanding the wealth-creation opportunity for the next generation of Eternal leaders without incremental dilution for existing shareholders. This move is designed to align long-term incentives, deepen leadership retention and signal confidence in the bench strength now stepping into operational command.
Enter Albinder Singh Dhindsa: From Blinkit To Group CEO
The other half of this leadership pivot is the elevation of Blinkit co-founder and CEO, Albinder Singh Dhindsa, as Eternal’s new Group CEO. Dhindsa, best known for building Blinkit (formerly Grofers) into one of India’s most prominent quick-commerce platforms, has been deeply embedded in Eternal’s ecosystem since the company’s acquisition of Blinkit. Under his leadership, Blinkit transitioned from an acquisition project into Eternal’s largest growth engine, achieving breakeven and becoming central to the group’s long-term value-creation story.
Goyal has described Dhindsa as a “battle-hardened founder” whose execution capabilities, in his own words, “far exceed” his own when it comes to operating complexity and day-to-day decision-making. In the new construct, Dhindsa will own Eternal’s day-to-day execution, operating priorities and business decisions across the group, effectively becoming the “centre of gravity” for all operating decisions. Blinkit, which Goyal has called Eternal’s “largest growth opportunity,” will continue to be Dhindsa’s top priority even as he takes the reins at group level.
What Changes Inside Eternal’s Operating Model
From a structural standpoint, Eternal is not discarding the decentralised model it has spent the last few years building. Each business within the group will continue to be run by its own CEO with full operational ownership, preserving the entrepreneurial autonomy that has been central to Eternal’s culture. Dhindsa, as Group CEO, will sit above these units, aligning operating priorities, capital allocation and execution focus, while Goyal concentrates on long-term strategy, culture and governance as Vice Chairman.
In practical terms, this means the locus of day-to-day decision-making for Eternal’s portfolio shifts firmly to Dhindsa. As Goyal himself put it, the “centre of gravity for operating decisions moves to Albi,” signalling to employees, partners and shareholders that execution leadership is now firmly in Dhindsa’s hands. At the same time, the company has underscored that core operating assumptions—the decentralised structure and the primacy of Blinkit as a growth driver—will remain intact, aiming to provide continuity amidst change.
Eternal’s Strategic Focus And The High-Risk Ideas Outside Its Scope
One of the most telling elements of this transition is the way Goyal has explicitly separated Eternal’s strategic charter from his personal appetite for frontier experimentation. Over the past year, he has been increasingly active in backing and incubating ventures that sit outside Eternal’s immediate business scope, including Temple, a health-tech wearables startup, space-tech company Pixxel, longevity-focused research initiative Continue, and LAT Aerospace, which works on hydrogen-powered airships and short-duration aviation.
Moneycontrol and other outlets have previously reported that Goyal has been spending more time raising capital for Temple and leading funding rounds in emerging technology ventures like Pixxel, while also running Continue and LAT Aerospace in parallel. In his latest communication, he acknowledged that the kinds of ideas he wants to pursue now carry a risk and experimentation profile that simply does not fit within the boundaries of a public company with quarterly disclosures, regulatory scrutiny and a broad shareholder base. By decoupling these pursuits from Eternal’s core, the leadership believes the company can stay sharply focused on its existing platforms while Goyal’s entrepreneurial energies find a more suitable sandbox outside the listed entity.
Implications For Shareholders, Employees And The Market
For shareholders, this transition aims to signal continuity with accountability. Eternal retains its founder at the board table with long-term skin in the game, even as it hands daily operating control to a leader who has demonstrably scaled a high-growth business within the group. The return of Goyal’s unvested ESOPs to the pool is intended to deepen the talent bench and broaden ownership among the emerging leadership layer, which may help address long-term retention and execution risk.
For employees, particularly within Zomato and Blinkit, the message is one of familiar leadership, not a disruptive break. Dhindsa is an existing operator within the ecosystem, not an external hire, and the decentralised structure means business-unit CEOs will continue to have clear mandates and autonomy. At a market level, the move underscores a broader pattern in Indian consumer-tech where founders move into strategic and governance-heavy roles while seasoned operators take charge of scaled, multi-business platforms. Eternal’s leadership has been careful to stress that this is not a retreat but an evolution designed to strengthen institutional depth as the company grows.
What This Means For Blinkit And Quick-Commerce
Blinkit sits at the core of why this leadership handover matters. Under Dhindsa’s leadership, Blinkit has gone from a high-burn quick-commerce bet to a breakeven business, validating Eternal’s thesis that instant delivery can be built into a financially sustainable and strategically critical pillar. Eternal has repeatedly described Blinkit as its biggest growth opportunity, and Dhindsa’s elevation to Group CEO effectively formalises Blinkit’s centrality in the group’s future.
With Dhindsa owning group-level operating decisions, Blinkit’s priorities—profitability, category expansion, and integration with Zomato’s broader ecosystem—are likely to sit at the heart of Eternal’s operating agenda. For the broader quick-commerce market, this move is a signal that Eternal is doubling down on the model, putting the architect of its most successful bet in charge of the entire portfolio. That could mean more aggressive experimentation across dark stores, instant commerce categories, and cross-platform synergies in the months ahead.
Governance, Culture And The Path Ahead
Goyal has framed this transition as a way to strengthen Eternal’s institutional character rather than weaken founder influence. He has highlighted his continued focus on culture, leadership development, ethics and governance, areas he says he has already been spending more time on recently. The board’s decision to formalise him as Vice Chairman puts this mandate on a firmer footing and provides continuity of vision at the board level, even as operational leadership changes hands.
Looking ahead, Eternal’s leadership narrative is likely to revolve around three pillars: a disciplined, decentralised operating model; a quick-commerce engine in Blinkit under Dhindsa’s stewardship; and a founder-turned-Vice-Chairman continuing to shape long-term strategy while exploring frontier ideas outside the listed vehicle. For stakeholders tracking Eternal’s next chapter—from investors to employees and ecosystem partners—the key signal is that this is a calibrated reset, with clear roles, aligned incentives and a deliberate separation between high-risk experimentation and listed-company execution.