Gaming platform Games24x7 appoints Saroj Panigrahi as COO

Panigrahi, who has been elevated to the C-suite from the vice president position, has been with the gaming platform for the last 15 years.

In his most recent role, Panigrahi was responsible for building the platform’s fantasy sports app My11Circle. Before joining the company in 2007 as a lead engineer, Panigrahi had worked at Accenture.

“There couldn’t be a better time to be in the rapidly growing sunrise sector of online gaming. …my goal is to drive forward the next phase of growth for our businesses at Games24x7,” Panigrahi said in a statement.

Commenting on the appointment, Trivikraman Thampy, cofounder and co-CEO of Games24x7, said, “Saroj has been an invaluable team member over the years, and has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership, strategic acumen and deep understanding of the user.”

Panigrahi’s appointment comes at a time when the online gaming industry is about to undergo regulation in the form of self-regulatory organisations (SRO), as proposed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in April.

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The government will set up multiple self-regulatory organisations (SROs) comprising industry representatives, educationists, and other experts such as child experts, psychology experts, etc. To begin with, the government will notify three SROs, but can add more later.These SROs will be responsible for declaring online games permissible on the basis of whether games offer wagering.

ET reported in April that Games24x7 and three other gaming firms, including Dream Sports, which runs Dream11, Mobile Premier League (MPL) and Zupee, wrote a note to MeitY distancing themselves from the Internet and Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI) statement that said the draft gaming rules were “right on intent but poor on scoping”.