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In a move that shocks the industry, CFO of Indian ECommerce giant, Flipkart quits


Big News Network.com
26 Oct 2016

BANGALORE, India - In a dramatic move that has shocked the industry, India’s eCommerce giant, Flipkart faced yet another top level exit, the third one this year.

This time it was Sanjay Baweja, the CFO of the company whose decision to exit the online retailer was confirmed by Flipkart’s spokesperson.

Baweja’s last working day at the company would be December 31 and Flipkart is already said to be looking for a replacement.

Baweja took the position of CFO on November 5, 2014, leaving his position as CFO at Tata Communications.

His exit comes at a time when Flipkart is facing intense pressure from its chief rival, Amazon to drive extraordinary sales figures during the country’s busiest festive sale season that lasts until December. It was reported that Flipkart was set to raise nearly $1 billion to face Amazon.

During his stint as CFO at Tata Communications between January 2009 and November 2014 - Baweja handled various responsibility from financial reporting & compliance, to treasury & fund management, including financial planning and analysis, management assurance, taxation and procurement.

Before that, he was the CFO at Emaar MGF Land Limited from October 2005 to January 2009 where he handled the position of executive president of corporate affairs and chief risk officer.

Speculation in the industry was that Baweja is to rejoin Tata, however, no such development has been confirmed so far.

Experts opine that Baweja’s exit will deal a blow to Flipkart that has suffered many managerial losses in 2016. 

In February this year, Flipkart’s Commerce and Advertising Business Head, Mukesh Bansal bid adieu to the eCommerce giant, while Ankit Nagori, Chief Business Officer of the company too left in the same month.

Then, in April, Flipkart suffered another loss as the company’s Chief Product Officer, Punit Soni and Vice President and Head of Seller ecosystem Manish Maheshwari quit the firm.

The spate of exits didn’t end there. In July, two more senior executives left the firm, Lalit Sarna, the company’s Payment product head and Sunil Gopinath, product lead for marketplace division. The same month, Flipkart's legal head, Rajinder Sharma too quit after serving ten months at the company.

In addition to the top-level exits, the company also fired about 700 to 1,000 employees this year, in a bid to employ cost-cutting measures to boost its overall performance. 

Reports from Bangalore quoted sources as saying that the company’s category management head and MD at Flipkart's largest shareholder, Tiger Global Management, Kalyan Krishnamurthy might serve as interim CFO.

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