Flipkart hires Ram Papatla from Amazon as VP

Online marketplace Flipkart has hired Ram Papatla from rival Amazon India as the vice president of product management.

Papatla will be responsible for driving advances in buying experiences for customers by focusing on content and product information.

A Flipkart spokesperson confirmed the development, which was first reported by The Economic Times.

At Amazon India, Papatla was director of seller product management and marketing responsible for digital acquisition, fulfillment and seller success.

Papatla is an engineering graduate from Andrews university. Prior to Amazon, he spent 16 years at Microsoft where he worked on driving Microsoft Office on mobile devices among other roles.

This is the first time that Flipkart has hired an Amazon India executive. Earlier, the company had appointed Dan Rawson from Amazon US as head of customer logistics and supply chain ecosystems. It had also appointed Google's Ravi Byakod as director of engineering – accounting, and Microsoft's Anand Lakshminarayanan as head of product management for digital goods and services.

Earlier, Flipkart had also appointed IT industry veteran Ravi Garikipati in a newly created position – entrepreneur in residence. In April, it hired Hari Vasudev (from Yahoo), Anand KV (Hathway) and Manish Maheshwari (txtWeb), to spearhead its supply chain, customer experience and seller ecosystem verticals, respectively. The firm had also named Saikiran Krishnamurthy from McKinsey its chief operating officer.

Flipkart has also seen a number of senior-level exits recently. Chief people officer Mekin Maheshwari recently moved to an advisory role while Ravi Vora, who was serving as CEO of Flipkart's Strategic Brands Group, exited the company. In August, the CEOs of Appiterate and AdIQuity, startups acquired by Flipkart earlier this year, moved on from the company. Prior to that, Amod Malviya, chief technology officer of Flipkart, stepped down to be a part of the company's advisory board.