Snapdeal ropes in Unilever executive Vivek Patankar as senior vice president for finance

E-commerce major Snapdeal.com, run by Delhi-based Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, has appointed Vivek Patankar as senior vice president – finance just days after losing its CFO Akash Moondhra.

A Chartered Accountant with an MBA in Finance from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Patankar was working with Unilever Plc, London where he was leading the financial planning and analytics vertical for the business globally.

He comes with over 12 years of experience in financial planning and analysis, corporate strategy, etc.

Prior to moving to Unilever headquarters, he was the CFO for the Lakme business of Unilever where he helped the business turn around and expand stores. He has also had short stints at General Electric and Marico.

"Vivek with his prior experience in establishing and executing key financial processes at very large, respected global institutions will help us drive sustainable and profitable growth," said Kunal Bahl, co-founder & CEO, Snapdeal.

The firm did not say if Patankar would be designated as CFO to replace a position vacated by Moondhra recently. Earlier this year, Snapdeal also lost another CXO.

In February, Snapdeal CTO Amitabh Misra had quit the company. Around the same time Jeyandran Venugopal was roped in from Yahoo as technology advisor.

Snapdeal has emerged as one of the top three e-com marketplaces in the country along with Flipkart and Amazon. It is also the second most funded tech venture in India behind Flipkart.

It has also been fairly active in raising money as well as striking deals.

In October 2014, Japanese telecom and internet firm SoftBank Corp (which is the single-largest shareholder of Alibaba) committed $627 million (Rs 3,846 crore) in Snapdeal. Its other investors include eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Ratan Tata, BlackRock, Temasek, Myriad Asset Management, Tybourne Capital, PremjiInvest and Saama Capital. Some of them also put in fresh money at the same time.

Earlier this month, Snapdeal acquired payments provider Freecharge in the biggest tech buyout deal to date and has bought a stake in Jabong's spun out logistics unit GoJavas.

Last year Snapdeal's top rival in India Flipkart also brought in Sanjay Baweja from Tata Communications as CFO. The CFO role at Flipkart was being handled by a representative of its key investor Tiger Global after its previous finance chief quit in early 2013.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)