Flipkart ropes in Saikiran Krishnamurthy from McKinsey as COO

India's top consumer e-commerce venture Flipkart has appointed Saikiran Krishnamurthy as chief operating officer (COO) of its commerce division, which in effect, makes him the number two man looking after day to day activities of the e-com firm, barring logistics, according to a report inThe Economic Times, citing a company executive.

Krishnamurthy will report to Mukesh Bansal, who is now heading the day-to-day operations of the firm after a three-way organisation shuffle where the Flipkart co-founders are now involved with strategy and logistics businesses. While Sachin Bansal is looking after new initiatives and strategy, Binny Bansal is heading supply chain and logistics.

Before the top level shuffle involving the co-founders, the firm had put Ravi Vora, who was earlier handling marketing for Flipkart, as new chief to build new in-house brands for the company and Ankit Nagori, Flipkart's marketplace head, was made responsible for general merchandise and book-retailing.

Mukesh Bansal, who got into the firm after Flipkart acquired Myntra, a venture co-founded by him, last year, was made head of marketing and with the last change at the top deck, is reportedly CEO of the day-to-day operations.

Krishnamurthy becomes the top lateral recruitment by the firm to date after the firm roped in Sanjay Baweja as CFO from Tata Communications three months ago.

Although the firm is yet to make a formal announcement, Mukesh Bansal confirmed the development to the newspaper. The 39 year old is still listed as a director with McKinsey in Mumbai, which means he is still in the gardening period.

We have contacted the firm for more details and the immediate targets set for Krishnamurthy and shall update the copy as we hear from them.

An IIM-Ahmedabad graduate, who has been with McKinsey for more than 15 years, Krishnamurthy has been leading the consulting major's Chemicals and Agriculture practice in India. He also led the Operations practice and McKinsey Implementation in India.

In his leadership role in the Operations practice and in McKinsey Implementation, he has been helping clients strengthen their operational capabilities.

Last year Flipkart raised $1.9 billion in three rounds of funding from both new and existing investors as it has been building a war-chest to compete with Amazon among other local competitors such as Snapdeal.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)