Nitin Seth, Flipkart’s chief operating officer has apparently resigned, as per two sources aware of the development. He was one of the highest ranking executives on the platform and was in charge of the logistics unit Ekart, as well as strategy and human resources. His resignation is being tendered due to personal reasons.
Seth’s resignation will give more power to CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy who took over the HR department just last week. This new development in the company’s power structure will leave the chief executive, who is a former Tiger Global Management executive, in charge of all key functions at the company.
According to one of the sources,
Ekart and corporate functions that Seth was in charge of will now report to Kalyan.
Seth initially joined Flipkart as chief people officer in 2016 and quickly rose through the ranks. He was promoted to chief administrative officer in mid 2016 and this put him in charge of strategy and corporate functions. He became COO in January 2017 following Krishanmurthy’s appointment as CEO, who took over from co-founder Binny Bansal — who became group CEO.
As COO, Seth was also head of Ekart and customer experience. His previous work experience includes being MD and country head for Fidelity International, where he was in charge of its offshore operations in India and Tunisia. Even before this, he was the head of McKinsey’s global knowledge centre in India, where he spent eight years.
Before his resignation, Seth was working under Krishnamurthy. Just last week it was reported that Flipkart was looking to hire a new HR head but now it is unclear whether the company is also looking for a head of Ekart.
Seth’s exit from the company comes at an inopportune time, with the HR department becoming a key function in Flipkart right now. The Bengaluru based company is already in talks to acquire Snapdeal following which it will have to re-distribute the latter’s 1,000 employees or so. In addition, Flipkart is also currently merging with eBay India, as part of its recent $1.4 billion fundraising activity.
As reported last week, a number of Flipkart’s top executives have quit after Krishnamurthy was appointed CEO. These include Saikiran Krishanmurthy, Surojit Chatterjee, and Samardeep Subandh.
