After working under interim CEO (GFG CFO) Nils Chrestin for well over a month, Jabong is finally getting its own CEO and whole new set of executives. The Rocket Internet-backed fashion-only ecommerce startup has appointed Ex-Benetton India MD Sanjeev Mohanty as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director of the company.
Mohanty has worked at Benetton India for over 11 years, out of which, 8 years were as the Managing Director. Prior to his role at Benetton India, Sanjeev Mohanty worked at Madura Garments as General Manager and Brand Head for SF Jeans and at Levi Strauss as Product Manager for the topwear category.
Till now, the company was being run by Nils Chrestin, Chief financial officer at GFG, who was brought to act as the interim CEO at Jabong after the executives at senior leadership level started leaving company. Along with senior execs., Jabong also saw the departure of its co-founders, creating a serious crisis as far as company’s operations are concerned.
Commenting on his appointment as CEO, Sanjeev Mohanty said,
I am excited to enter the rapidly growing online commerce sector, and there could be no better opportunity than Jabong given its scale and consumer brand recognition.
The company is uniquely positioned as India’s only large and independent online fashion marketplace, and we have identified a number of growth drivers that will allow us to deliver an unparalleled experience to delight our customers and suppliers.
The company has also hired former Gaana.com’s product head Saurabh Goel as Chief Product Officer; Sumit Jain, former CTO of HT Media Ltd’s digital business, as the Chief Technology Officer; and Saurabh Srivastava from MobiKwik as the Chief Marketing Officer.
Founded in 2011 by Praveen Sinha, Jabong is one of the six fashion e-commerce brands within Global Fashion Group (GFG), claimed to be the world’s leading fashion e-commerce group for emerging markets that operates across 28 countries.
However, the company has had a rather tumultuous ride, specially this year. Factors responsible are several — Myntra getting a big push via Flipkart investment, Jabong founders leaving the company themselves and rumours of Jabong getting under hammer.
Jabong offers a wide selection of over 350k products across its footwear, apparel, jewellery and accessories categories. The company is currently employing more than 800 people.
