Anand Chandrasekaran has quit as the chief product officer at Snapdeal after less than a year with the e-commerce company to pursue entrepreneurial interests.
Chandrasekaran’s exit comes barely a month after Snapdeal rival Flipkart’s chief product officer Punit Soni resigned. Flipkart and Snapdeal are not the only e-commerce and consumer Internet companies seeing many top-level executives leave in recent months; taxi aggregator Ola, restaurant listings startup Zomato and mobile wallet and e-commerce firm Paytm are among the others. In February, Tanmay Saksena quit as Zomato’s chief product officer.
Many of these executives resigned to launch their own startups. Arun Chandra Mohan, co-founder and CEO of Jabong, left the fashion e-tailer in September last year to start his own venture. In January, Srinivas Murthy, who served as the vice president of marketing at Snapdeal, quit the company to set up his own venture.
Chandrasekaran had joined Snapdeal, run by Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd, from Bharti Airtel Ltd in June 2015.
The news of his exit came out when Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal tweeted:
Chandrasekaran responded to Bansal’s tweet:
A Snapdeal spokesperson separately confirmed the development. “Anand has done some stellar work on the product side at Snapdeal. His insights and attention to detail have helped us traverse quickly towards launching and improving products at Snapdeal,” the spokesperson said in an email statement.
Hinting that Chandrasekaran is taking another swing at entrepreneurship, the spokesperson said, “We wish Anand the very best for his entrepreneurial journey ahead.”
The spokesperson refused to divulge any information on his replacement.
Chandrasekaran spearheaded the launch of several technology initiatives as Bharti Airtel’s chief product officer during a 13-month stint. Before Bharti Airtel, he was senior director at Internet giant Yahoo in California, US. Prior to Yahoo, he was director of products at Openwave. In 2001, Chandrasekaran had co-founded Aeroprise, said to be the world’s most widely deployed mobility solution for IT service management.
Chandrasekaran has also been an active angel investor. In his most recent investment, he put in an undisclosed amount in Delhi-based Advergame Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates mobile-based gaming network app Gamezop.
In December last year, he invested an undisclosed sum in RentOnGo, an online marketplace for renting bikes, electronics and appliances. The same month, he also made an investment in Splitkart, a mobile app that allows users to split bills and plan group outings.
He has also put in money in Los Angeles-based audio accessories company Audeze, hyperlocal medicine and healthcare products delivery startup Pluss, freight platform FreightTiger and HD-live streaming platform Instalively. Besides, he has invested an undisclosed amount in food-tech startup InnerChef.
