Sachin Bansal passes the Flipkart CEO mantle to Binny Bansal

Online marketplace Flipkart now has a new CEO – Binny Bansal. Yes, the co-founder who has long served as the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) is ready to take on new role as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Experts believe that the new move is aligned with the ecommerce leader’s impending IPO and is the ‘next phase of the journey’.

Speaking about this next transitional phase, Binny Bansal shared on the company’s blog, “At Flipkart, we have come a long way in our eight-year journey. Today, we are in a very strong leadership position, with over 60 per cent share of the m-commerce market, 50 million customers and a clear leadership in smartphones and fashion. The journey ahead is equally exciting and challenging. Flipkart has all the necessary ingredients of brilliant talent and great technology to win in this next phase as well. We will continue to build world-class customer experience, expand our supply chain infrastructure to reach all parts of India, drive innovations in mobile commerce, and bring in disruptive technologies.”

Binny Bansal’s new responsibilities as the CEO

The shy and reserved one of the two Flipkart co-founders, Binny will now have to step into the limelight and fill Sachin’s shoes. And ecommerce industry players believe he’ll do a great job.

“Unlike a lot of the big names, (Binny) is extremely approachable. You expect to be intimidated, but that just disappears almost immediately. He (Binny) is very sorted, very logical and very ambitious,” said Xitij Kothi, founder of Parcelled.

His new responsibilities will include:

• Becoming the face of the company, just like Sachin Bansal was
• Accountable for Flipkart’s overall growth & performance
• Looking after regular activities from all corners
• The company’s commerce arm, (Ekart & Myntra will now report to him)
• Internal teams such as corporate communications, corporate development, finance, human resources and legal will also report to him

Sachin Bansal scaled up as Executive Chairman

• After stepping down as CEO of Flipkart, Sachin Bansal will embrace new role as the Executive Chairman and his responsibilities are:
• Design long-term strategic plans and execute them
  
• Identify new investment opportunities
• Mentor the senior leadership of the company
• Continue working towards building a healthy Internet ecosystem and support Indian ecommerce industry’s growth
• Represent the company in external forums

Myntra’s founder and Flipkart’s Head of Commerce Platform Mukesh Bansal has been given an additional responsibility to look after Flipkart’s ads business.

This top-management reshuffle is bound to bring fresh positive energy in the company. It’ll be exciting to see how the Bansal trio (not related) fit in their new roles and what changes they bring about.