Flipkart co-founder and Group CEO Binny Bansal has put down his papers from his current position, after an independent probe by found him guilty of serious personal misconduct.
Earlier today, Binny Bansal announced his resignation as CEO of Flipkart Group, effective immediately. Binny has been an important part of Flipkart since co-founding the company, but recent events risked becoming a distraction and Binny has made a decision to step down.
Walmart said in a statement.
The statement further mentions, that even though there were no concrete evidences found to corroborate the complainant’s personal misconduct complaint, there were “other lapses in judgement, particularly a lack of transparency, related to how Binny responded to the situation”. Because of this, the board has accepted Bansal’s resignation.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy will continue to be the CEO of Flipkart, which will now include Myntra and Jabong, continuing to operate as separate platforms within the Flipkart business.
Ananth Narayanan will continue providing great leadership as CEO of Myntra and Jabong, and will report into Kalyan. Sameer Nigam will continue leading PhonePe as CEO. Both Kalyan and Sameer will report directly into the board.
In September, media reports suggesting that Walmart was looking at the prospect of replacing Binny with another leader, had surfaced. There was also talk of Binny having been made redundant by the new powers.
Satish Meena, analyst with Forrester Research, had told Business Today in September:
Myntra and Jabong have their own business heads. Kalyan Krishnamurthy takes care of Flipkart. There is little left. Plus, the company doesn’t have to do any fund-raising. There is not much work left for Binny.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Flipkart said that Binny had been contemplating a shift from quite some time, and that he had been working on a succession plan. However, the allegations of misconduct although unspecified till date, were serious enough to lead to Binny’s unceremonious departure from the company he helped found.
Meanwhile, we are left with a slew of unanswered questions. What was the misconduct that prompted Binny and Flipkart to part ways? Will Binny retain his substantial stake and his board seat with Flipkart? We are trying to find answers, and we will update this post with more details as soon as we get them.
More to follow….
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