Excl: eBay India looking for a new country head, Spencer Stuart given the mandate to hire

Online auction and shopping marketplace eBay Inc. is looking for a new country head for its India business unit. The company has given Spencer Stuart, a leading global executive search firm, the mandate to search for a new one, sources close to the development told Techcircle.in.

Muralikrishnan B, who joined eBay back in 2005, is its current country manager for India.

We contacted the company for a confirmation but did not get one, instead, Deepa Thomas, official spokesperson, eBay India, said, "We don't comment on industry rumours or speculation." We also tried contacting Spencer Stuart, India, but the company declined to comment. It could not be immediately ascertained if Muralikrishnan is moving to a different role within eBay or moving out of the firm. Calls to Muralikrishnan went unanswered.

Muralikrishnan had been appointed as country manager, eBay India, in May 2011, when Ambareesh Murty, who had led eBay India as country manager since March 2008, resigned to pursue his entrepreneurial interests. He ended up launching online lifestyle store Pepperfry.com, which recently closed its second round of funding worth $8 million from its existing investor Norwest Venture Partners.

Prior to that, Muralikrishnan was senior director – marketing and product management at eBay. Before eBay, he has worked at e Tata Communications (senior manager - product delivery), Sify Ltd (senior manager - product development) and Asian Paints. He had also been part of the IAMAI (Internet & Mobile Association of India) e-commerce and FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry) retail committees. He holds a PGDM/MBA degrees in marketing and economics from IIM Calcutta and a BE degree in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University.

Late last year, eBay introduced a new category of packaged food items. The new category was launched as a separate website hosted on the same domain under the name eBay Daily. It is operating into categories such as ready-to-eat food, snacks, confectionary items, drinks, among others.

In Jan 2013, LinkedIn, a professional network with 187 million global members, had named Nishant K Rao as the new country manager for India. His appointment followed the promotion of the former country manager, Hari V Krishnan, who is now serving a bigger role as the managing director for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Japan. Probably we could see something similar happening with eBay. Or is Muralikrishnan quitting to start his own entrepreneurial venture?

Keep track of this space as we update the story with more information.

(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)