Flipkart to hire CTO, CPO under Kalyan Krishnamurthy; Smriti Singh is new CHRO

Currently, Flipkart is going through major upheavals. In fact, the company has not stayed out of headlines since the $16 billion deal with Walmart in May this year, and the latest play in this game is top-level recruitment.

Since the past couple of years, there are several top positions that have been vacant in the company. Punit Soni, the CPO (Chief Product Officer) of Flipkart had left the company in April 2016, just before Kalyan Krishnamurthy’s re-entry into Flipkart as head of Design and later CEO.

In November 2017, the tech team had started reporting to Krishnamurthy, after then CTO (Chief Technology Officer) Ravi Garikipati was moved to the fintech department.

The position of CHRO (Chief Human Resource Officer) had been vacant for past 18 months, and while the team was reporting to COO (Chief Operations Officer) Nitin Seth till his exit in May this year, with this, the management of HR team was also handed over to Krishnamurthy.

Now, with both the Bansal founders out of the firm’s management, Krishnamurthy’s responsibilities taken an exponential hike, and while earlier he was able to head three departments, being promoted to Group CEO has made it necessary for him to fill out these positions and increase the stability in the firm.

The position of CHRO has now been allotted to Smriti Singh, former VP and HR head at Sony Pictures Networks India. For the remaining posts of CTO and CPO, the management is in talks with headhunting firms to fill out the vacancies.

Krishnamurthy is expected to meet with these organisations and remain actively involved in the recruitment process. Being the CEO definitely awards KK a greater autonomy on choosing the top-level personnel.

Looking at the larger picture, Flipkart’s office has become a revolving door both at the top management and employee level. With the merger between Myntra and Jabong, around 200 employees of the latter face the axe. Not to forget, the whole confusion around Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan resigning his post.

Flipkart has become a house of chaos, and everyone is uncertain about the company’s future, especially the employees at the lower level.

What remains to be seen is how long it takes for him to find these top-level managers, and if they end up adding to the firm’s stability in the longer run, or further disrupting it.