Flipkart has promoted several of its leaders into newer roles at a time when the Walmart-owned e-commerce giant has internally raised its IPO (initial public offering) valuation target to about $60 billion and aims for a US listing in 2023, according to the sources.
“I am delighted to announce the promotion of some of our exemplary leaders,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer, Flipkart Group, in an internal note, and which has been reviewed by Business Standard.
“Each of them has been instrumental in delivering impact and creating long-term value for Flipkart.
"They truly embody our core values and are well known for their thought leadership.”
For instance, Guddeti Bharath Reddy who joined Flipkart in July 2015 as the head of eKart IT has been promoted to the role of senior vice president (SVP).
Over the years, he has taken on additional charters to lead IT for the Flipkart Group.
Most recently, he has taken on the mantel of leading OneTech Operations for Flipkart.
In his current role, Reddy has been instrumental in bringing automation into day-to-day processes and scaling the IT infrastructure to meet the growing needs of supply chain and CX operations.
“He has also delivered the consolidated financial platforms enabling faster MEC closure towards our IPO readiness, introduced cutting edge technologies,” said Krishnamurthy.
Another leader Bharath Ram who joined Flipkart in March 2020 to lead the user acquisition and retention organisation in OneTech has also been promoted to the role of SVP position.
Over the years, Ram has led product, design, engineering and data science for user growth and retention as well as social commerce platform Shopsy and Flipkart Grocery.
He has delivered a high impact towards Flipkart’s business growth.
“Bharath (Ram) has been instrumental in developing the end-to-end pre-and post-acquisition tech, people and product integration strategy for Cleartrip, apart from overseeing other key acquisitions such as MechMocha and Scapic,” said Krishnamurthy.
Prajakta Kanaglekar who joined Flipkart in July 2019 to lead the organisation and talent development charter, having recently moved to lead HR for the supply chain function has been promoted to vice president (VP) designation.
Over the years, she has led complex charters across the company such as performance development, talent development, inclusion and diversity and leadership development.
Sarah Vanita Gideon who joined the firm in 2019 to lead external communications for the Flipkart Group has been elevated to VP role.
Over the last two years, she has built and led an effective team effort towards ensuing an integrated communications approach for the company.
She has also taken over the additional responsibility of leading internal communications.
“With a dynamic external environment, including the pandemic, increased competition and regulatory framework, Sarah (Gideon) has worked with a broad set of stakeholders within and outside the Group to consistently drive an impact narrative, communicating about Flipkart’s efforts towards sustainable growth, people centricity, new initiatives and businesses,” said Krishnamurthy.
Sridhar Govardhan who joined in 2019 as senior director for the CISO org and has been pivotal in strategising and designing the information security roadmap for Flipkart has been promoted to the role of VP. He has been instrumental in improving the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) maturity score for Flipkart and has worked across several internal functions to execute the fairly elaborate and complex security 2.0 programme successfully.
Shalabh Shrivastava who joined Flipkart in 2014 and has varied charters such as customer experience (strategy and design) 3PL and non-large city logistics and the large and furniture supply chain organisation has been promoted as a VP.
Also, Ganesh M Ramaswamy has been promoted to the VP role.
He joined the company in 2019 to lead the engineering charter for core logistics (CL) and Jeeves where he drove multiple critical projects such as payments and fake detection improvements.
These promotions come at a time when Flipkart is in a fierce battle with rivals such as Amazon, Reliance’s JioMart and Tata among its rivals to tap the booming e-commerce market in India.
It had earlier set an IPO valuation goal of $50 billion.
The firm is eyeing a new target, because the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, and more consumers are shopping online at a higher frequency on the Flipkart platform.
The online retail market in India is expected to reach $350 billion by 2030 from $45-50 billion now.
Last year, Flipkart Group carved a niche for itself in the global league by raising $3.6 billion, including from SoftBank, which had exited the firm, valuing the company at $37.6 billion, which was more than a 50 per cent rise in a year.
Last year in November, e-commerce firms such as Flipkart, Amazon, and others witnessed blockbuster festive season sales of about $9.2 billion year surpassing the pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion witnessed during the festive month in 2019.
With more than 350 million registered users in the country, Flipkart has been investing in key categories, including fashion, travel and grocery. These categories are playing a key role in its growth.
Flipkart entered the healthcare sector with the launch of Flipkart Health+ last November. Flipkart Health+, recently launched Flipkart Health+ app, a tech platform that enables access to genuine medicines and healthcare products and services for millions of customers across the country.
With an aim to serve customers across 20,000 pin codes in India, Flipkart Health+ will enable easy and convenient access to quality and affordable medicines and healthcare products, from independent sellers, through the Flipkart Health+ app.
Last year Flipkart also acquired Cleartrip, as the company further enhanced its investments to strengthen its digital commerce offerings for customers.
