After the recent pull-out of Uber a few months ago, Grab has continued to scale up as Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing platform. To continue to provide quality service to its customers, Grab has appointed a new Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Mark Porter to manage its infrastructure. While technically not owning any vehicles as assets, Grab employs a vast network of infrastructure to manage its virtual fleet.
Theo Vassilakis, Group Chief Technology Officer said, “More than 1 in 6 Southeast Asians ride with us and millions earn income with us as driver partners. Beyond delivering safe, affordable and convenient ways to travel, we have a big responsibility to ensure that our systems remain stable and reliable even as we continue to grow. We know that when things don’t work, it’s more than the inability to get a ride; it impacts people’s livelihoods.
He goes on to state, “At the same time, the pace of innovation at Grab means that we need to design, build and ship features in as short a time as a week. This is critical to ensure we can keep pace with how our customer needs and the market landscape evolve. With his deep systems expertise, there is no one more capable or experienced than Mark to ensure Grab’s technology infrastructure is safe, robust and fit for purpose.”
Mark will be based in Seattle and will lead engineering teams across the globe, at six research and development centres in Singapore, Seattle, Beijing, Bangalore, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta.
In the past quarter, Grab has rolled out four new features to its ride-hailing app, which benefit both drivers and riders;
- Adding voice messaging to GrabChat, allowing for safer communications.
- Cancel feature to amend pick-up location.
- Automatic driver re-allocation if the driver cancels the ride.
- Allowing riders to change drop-off location.
