Online marketplace Flipkart’s chief operating officer Nitin Seth has quit the firm, a financial daily reported on Wednesday.
Seth has resigned from Flipkart due to personal reasons, The Economic Times reported, quoting two people aware of the development.
Seth was also in charge of the e-commerce major's in-house logistics firm Ekart, supply chain, and customer experience. His exit will give Flipkart’s chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy full control of top functions at the firm, the ET report stated. It is not clear at this moment who will replace Seth.
Messages sent by VCCircle to Seth and email queries to Flipkart spokespersons seeking confirmation did not immediately elicit a response. The story will be updated as and when we get the responses.
Seth, former managing director and country head of investment firm Fidelity International in India, had joined Flipkart as chief people officer in February last year. He had replaced Mekin Maheshwari, one of the highest-paid executives at Flipkart at the time. Seth became COO in January this year after a major reshuffle of the top management, when Krishnamurthy, a former Tiger Global executive, was appointed CEO.
Seth’s exit comes at a time when Krishnamurthy is taking direct control of various functions at the firm. Last week, it was reported that Krishnamurthy would be overseeing the human resources function. Besides this, he will also be in charge of finance, category design management, private label, customer shopping, engineering, and marketing.
Between last year and early this year, Flipkart has seen a number of top-level exits, including Saikiran Krishnamurthy, head of Ekart; chief marketing officer Samardeep Subandh; and senior vice president of product management Surojit Chatterjee. In October last year, the firm’s chief financial officer Sanjay Baweja resigned and, in April 2016, chief product officer Punit Soni had resigned without specifying any reason, just after a year of joining.
However, that trend seems to have changed in the past few months with Seth playing an instrumental role in bringing back talent to Flipkart.
Last month, Flipkart raised $1.5 billion from Tencent, Microsoft, and eBay as it moves closer to sealing its merger with rival firm Snapdeal. Last week, the e-commerce firm signed the term sheet for the merger and will be conducting due diligence.