Homegrown cab hailing startup Ola has appointed former Flipkart executive Saikiran Krishnamurthy as its senior vice-president, a financial daily reported.
Krishnamurthy, who had joined Flipkart as its COO in 2015, was later appointed as the head of the company’s supply chain vertical, which included eKart and after-sales platform Jeeves. In January, he quit the company days after Tiger Global’s Kalyan Krishnamurthy took over as its CEO. Subsequently in March, Krishnamurthy had joined his former employer Mckinsey in a part-time advisory role.
The Times of India said that Krishnamurthy will head Ola’s newly-created marketplace and will spearhead growth initiatives.
E-mail queries to ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates Ola, seeking more information on the development did not elicit any immediate response.
Last month, Ola had hired another former eKart executive Harish Abhichandani as its chief financial officer, replacing former Infosys executive Rajiv Bansal.
An IIM-Ahmedabad graduate, Krishnamurthy had been with McKinsey for over 15 years before joining Flipkart. He had been leading its chemicals and agriculture practice in India, besides being responsible for its operations practice and McKinsey Implementation programme in India.
Ola, which effected some top-level changes in January by bringing in Pepsi India veteran Vishal Kaul as chief operating officer and designating the incumbent COO Pranay Jivrajka as a founding partner, has seen some senior-level exits in recent months.
Sundeep Sahni, a high-profile hire who headed its new initiatives, and head of the luxury cab services, Ola Lux Abhimanyu Rawal, had quit in December 2016.
Last month, Ola had raised $36 million from New York-based hedge fund Tekne Capital Management. In May, it had secured Rs 670 crore in a fresh round of funding from Falcon Edge Capital and Ratan Tata’s RNT Capital Advisers, besides mopping up another Rs 1,675 crore from SoftBank subsidiary SIMI Pacific Pte in April.
