Meet the new CEO and Executive Chairman of Flipkart

After serving as the CEO of Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart for more than eight years, Co-founder Sachin Bansal, has stepped down to take on the role of Executive Chairman of the company. Co-founder Binny Bansal, will take the reins from Sachin to be the Chief Executive Officer of Flipkart. He was earlier the COO of the company.

Sachin will continue to be the Chairman of the Board. Flipkart has amassed a total of $3.2 billion funding till date. With personal wealth of $1.3 billion, both Sachin and Binny were featured in Forbes India's 100 Richest people(#86).

The new role

According to a statement issued by the company, in his role as Executive Chairman of Flipkart, Sachin will

1. provide strategic direction for Flipkart,
2. mentor the senior leadership of the company,
3. look for new investment opportunities, and
4. represent the company in external forums.

Sachin said,

In this next phase of the journey, it will be our endeavour to fulfil this responsibility and prove that India can produce a world class internet company that can outshine any global behemoth.

Binny's new role as Chief Executive Officer brings in the following changes:

1. Binny is now responsible for operationally driving the company and accountable for Flipkart’s overall performance.
2. All the business areas – Commerce, Ekart and Myntra will now report to Binny.
3. All Corporate functions including Human Resources, Finance, Legal, Corporate Communications and Corporate Development will also report to Binny.

In a statement, Binny claimed that Flipkart has 60% market share of the m-commerce market, 50 million customers and clear leadership in smartphones and fashion.

Mukesh Bansal will continue to be the Head of Commerce Platform, Flipkart’s core business, and will have additional responsibility of the ads business. Mukesh will also continue in his role as Chairman of Myntra.

YourStory Take

For the first time, an Indian unicorn (startup valued at over $1 billion) has made such a big structural change. After eight years of running the company as its CEO, Sachin's step can be seen as giving him a much needed break (from his active role). Co-founder Binny now gets a chance to create his legacy at India's largest e-commerce company. The change at the top could also be a step towards Flipkart having a professional CEO in the near future. Flipkart has built up its second line of command over the past many months. Mukesh Bansal, Punit Soni and Peeyush Ranjan and Ankit Nagori are respective heads of e-commerce, product, technology and business. Any of them could become the first professional CEO of Flipkart in some time.