Flipkart to lay off 400 employees, Voonik has a new CFO and payments major Stripe has a new India head – the personnel reshuffles from this week
In a week dominated by the news of Myntra acquiring Jabong, all didn't go well with the parent company Flipkart. It is planning to lay off close to 400 employees.
In other news, there was Silicon Valley-based payments giant Stripe, coming to India and appointing its India lead.
Here’s all that and more from the personnel shuffles that caught our attention this week:
Paladion Network snaps up Infosys’ EdgeVerve COO
Cyber security player Paladion yesterday announced the appointment of former EdgeVerve COO, Sunil Gupta, as President and Chief Operating Officer to its business.
With this new role, Sunil will be responsible for business strategies in Middle East, Africa and India, while directing all business units and delivery.
In a career spanning over 30 years, Sunil has held leadership positions in Aricent, Symphony Teleca and Logica India.
Voonik hires ex-Myntra finance head Prabhakar Sunder
After raising a Series-B round in June, Voonik has made its first senior-level hire, by appointing Prabhakar Sunder as its Chief Financial Officer.
Having worked in areas of capital raising, corporate finance, fund management and risk advisory, amongst others, at his previous role Prabhakar was heading the Finance, Commercial and Legal functions at Myntra.
Flipkart plans massive layoffs, asks 400 of its under-performing employees to resign
Confirming the news to YourStory, Flipkart has asked close to 300-400 under-performing employees to either resign or be sent off with severance pay. This decision would affect about one to two percent of their workforce.
Just earlier this year, the Indian e-commerce major was criticised for deferring the joining dates for campus recruits from the Indian Institute of Management.
This is truly an indicator of tough times for the sector, with bigger players finding it difficult to raise more rounds of funding. In February, even Snapdeal was reported to have asked around 200 of its employees to resign.
Funding crunch is prominent in other sectors too, including hyperlocal, with Grofers firing 10 percent of its workforce last June.
Zoho to hire 4,000 people in 3-4 years
It looks like there would be some hiring too, after all. Cloud services provider Zoho announced on Wednesday that it plans to double its headcount to 8,000 people in the next 3-4 years.
According to Zoho Chief Operating Officer Manikandan Vembu, the company plans to enter newer segments including payroll management. It is at present reported to have 4,000 individuals on its payroll, while having development centres in Chennai and Tenkasi.
San-Francisco based payments company Stripe hires its first India lead
Valued at $5 billion, Silicon Valley-based payments company Stripe appointed Anand Balaji as its India lead. According to Anand’s LinkedIn profile, the move took place in March this year. However, Times of India reported it on Monday this week.
Prior to this, Anand was the Head of Business Development for Amazon Mobile in India where he was leading the business development for all of Amazon’s mobile businesses.
A graduate from Wharton Business School, Anand has also worked with Microsoft as a marketing manager.
With the going getting tough, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if other e-commerce majors lay off their employees too. However, with the funding just rising in categories of pre-Series A, Series A and even Series B, it looks like smaller companies will continue to snap up the top talent from the bigger players in the ecosystem.
