Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy adds HR to his plate

The entire HR team at the online retailer will now report directly to Krishnamurthy as he takes up key portfolios of HR and finance under his purview

Flipkart’s CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, who took over as the CEO in January this year is now set to take charge as the chief people officer until a new one is hired. The entire HR team at the online retailer will now report directly to Krishnamurthy as he takes up key portfolios of HR and finance under his purview.

Before becoming the CEO, Krishnamurthy was the head – category design management.

Nitin Seth, who was the chief people officer and the chief administrative officer until 2016, was promoted as the chief operating officer at the same time when Krishnamurthy took over as the CEO. Additionally Seth is responsible for heading Ekart, which is the logistics division of the company, customer experience, strategy-to-execution capabilities and corporate functions.

While the company is looking for a new HR Head, Krishnamurthy will take charge of the responsibilities.

“Driving the people agenda and further enhancing Flipkart’s winning organisation culture has always been one of our top priorities. Towards this end, the people function will roll up to Kalyan. Meanwhile, we are looking to hire a head of HR, who will report to Kalyan and take full-time responsibility for the function,” a spokesperson from Flipkart stated in an email response to HRKatha.

The company also witnessed some senior-level exits earlier this year, as head of Ekart Saikiran Krishnamurthy, senior-vice president of product management Surojit Chatterjee and chief marketing officer Samardeep Subandh left while Krishnamurthy took over as CEO.

However, recently in an interesting move, the company also decided to rope in ex-workers to head new categories.