In yet another reshuffle of senior leadership at Walmart-owned Flipkart, chief financial officer (CFO) Sriram Venkataraman will now double as Flipkarts chief operating officer (COO). He will be filling a role that has remained vacant for nearly a year-and-a-half now. Under this additional role, Venkataraman will head the logistics vertical, Ekart, the marketplace, and the retail vertical, the online retailer said in an internal email.
After graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, and Indian Business School, Hyderabad, Venkataraman spent 11 years in the finance and treasury department at Hindustan Unilever. Three years ago, he was hired as the CFO of Flipkart.
His latest appointment as COO comes after co-founder Binny Bansal beat a hasty exit. The period that followed has been marked by intensive leadership reshuffling at Flipkart and its subsidiaries, including Myntra and Jabong.
Flipkart’s previous COO Nitin Seth resigned in mid-2017 citing personal reasons.
The Myntra-Jabong story
Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy wrote to employees announcing the appointment of Venkataraman besides other key modifications in important divisional roles and technology executives. “The leadership changes we are announcing today affect the following broad groups: marketing, operations, engineering and product.”
The e-mail indicated the transfer of Amar Nagaram to its fashion unit Myntra as its head of engineering and product. Myntra-Jabong CEO Ananth Narayanan, has resigned, despite confirmation he will continue, which means that the post may be abolished completely. The CEOs functions have been internally reassigned to Nagaram.
Acquired in 2014, Myntra was supposed to run as an independent business. However, last month, Walmart merged the three fashion verticals, Flipkart Fashion, Myntra and Jabong into a combined entity which is expected to come under the direct control of Krishnamurthy. Nagaram’s stint at Flipkart lasted seven years, where he was in charge of engineering, product and operations for customer shopping experience.
Myntra’s chief technology officer Jeyandran Venugopal will join Flipkart as the senior vice president of its engineering division.
Recent role changes
Krishnamurthy in the mail, also notified that senior members and his chief lieutenants Ravi Garikipati (head of fintech) and Shoumyan Biswas (Chief Marketing Officer) will soon exit the company. “Ravi G played a pivotal role in starting up our ads business, provided significant leadership for engineering and technology organisations, and established a solid platform in fintech for us to drive growth. Shoumyan has played a significant role in establishing Flipkart as one of the foremost Indian brands,” the mail read.
They will be replaced by Anil Goteti who will now lead Flipkart’s marketing division, from his earlier role as the head of marketplace. The erstwhile vice president-product Ranjith Boyanapalli now assumes control of the company’s fintech business, while continuing to manage Flipkart’s charter on payments and customer experience among others, the email said.
How it all started
The first shake-up was brought to public attention on December 7, when large appliances head Sandeep Karwa was reportedly transferred to a new department focused on hyperlocal offering. He was replaced by senior director Hari Kumar. Other rumoured personnel changes include that of Ayyappan R who was reportedly transferred to Myntra, and replaced by senior official Aditya Soni to head the smartphones category of Flipkart. According to Mint, Smrithi Ravichandran, a senior director who used to head key events like Big Billion Days, merchandise and business developments, was moved to a new role in Flipkarts fintech unit.
Has Walmart’s acquisition led to these changes?
The latest rejig in Flipkart’s top management comes just months after brick-and-mortar retail giant Walmart acquired 77% of India’s largest homegrown e-commerce platform for $16 billion. In November, co-founder Binny Bansal was forced to resign as the CEO, after an internal investigation charged him with personal misconduct.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius