Flipkart owned fashion vendor Myntra today announced the exit of its CEO Ananth Narayana after speculations ranging for nearly two months.
"It has been three and a half years. It has been a great stint," Ananth Narayanan, the CEO of Myntra-Jabong.
"The timing was right, and we have a great team and a great market positioning, so I felt like the right time to move on, and I want to think through what my next entrepreneurial journey will be".
Flipkart has now named Amar Nagaram as the new head of Myntra and Jabong, who will be exposed to the group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.
Amar, who later moved to Myntra, is a Flipkart expert, who has donned the roles of vice president, consumer shopping knowledge and director of mobile and web engineering, working on the convenience and knowledge of Flipkart app. In spite of running India's biggest fashion portal, a role elevation evaded Ananth.
Company insiders characteristic the reason behind Ananth's exit to the recent rejig by Walmart after Binny Bansal's abrupt exit.
But he did not say anything about it.
While PhonePe's Sameer Nigam got to report to the board directly, Ananth had to persist reporting to the group CEO Kalyan, something that was a difficult 'work equation' as sources inside the company said.
Narayanan said his expedition in Myntra was "very good" and he enjoyed every minute of it.
He said that Myntra's future is very bright. "The brand is now very strong, and it will now leverage the strength of the overall group. I feel good about it," he added.
When asked about his future plan, Narayanan did not divulge much but said that he would take a couple of months to be able to share an update on it.
"Obviously I can't talk about it yet, but I will, when it's opposite," Narayanan, a former McKinsey executive said.
According to media reports, Narayanan is in deliberations with Star TV-owned video streaming app Hotstar for the CEO's position.
Ananth has steered the company through the integration of Jabong and Myntra. He also launched several of its private labels such as HRX, Moda Rapido, and Roadster. He collaborated with intercontinental brands like Mango and Dorothy Perkins. He also steered the entire omnichannel strategy of Myntra, starting with opening the first roadster store in Bengaluru in 2017.
