Mukesh Bansal, head of marketplace and a board member at Flipkart, and chief business officer Ankit Nagori have decided to leave the e-commerce firm barely a month after a top-level reshuffle that led to a change in the roles of the company’s two founders.
“My incredible journey with Myntra and Flipkart comes to an end,†Mukesh Bansal wrote in an email to the Flipkart staff. “I am very excited with Binny [Bansal] coming in as CEO and my transition will enable him to work directly with CP (commerce platform) leadership,†read the mail.
The company had rejigged the roles of its two co-founders in January when it appointed co-founder and then-CEO Sachin Bansal as its executive chairman and co-founder and then-COO Binny Bansal as the new CEO to take care of day-to-day affairs.
With Mukesh leaving the firm and Sachin taking over as executive chairman, Binny would be fully in control of the company that is backed by marquee investors such as Tiger Global and Accel Partners and is estimated to be valued around $15 billion.
The three Bansals are not related to each other.
Separately, Flipkart announced that Nagori was also quitting the company. He had joined Flipkart about six years ago and quickly rose through the ranks.
Mukesh Bansal didn’t specify a date by when he would leave the company but said he would continue to be available from outside as a mentor to the team.
Mukesh had joined Flipkart nearly two years ago after the e-commerce firm acquired the online apparel retailer that he had founded, Myntra.
An IIT-Kanpur graduate, Mukesh started his career with Deloitte Consulting in 1997 and worked with and founded a bunch of startups in Silicon Valley before moving to Bangalore in 2007 to start Myntra with Ashutosh Lawania. After Myntra became part of Flipkart, he joined the board of Flipkart and headed its commerce platform.
Mukesh hasn’t revealed much about his future plans. “I am looking forward to a long break after my transition and catching up on my reading, travel and fitness. I will be spending bunch of time with my kids and catch up on all the fun I have missed with them all these years,†he said.
Nagori, on the other hand, plans to start his own sports venture. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal will back his new venture, said a post on Flipkart’s website.
“Sachin and Binny have shown full support,†said Nagori. “It’s heartening to see that, and it shows the confidence of the company that I have worked with for so long. I’m passionate about sports and I want to do something in that domain,†he said.
