Myntra hires ex-Amazon India executive Manpreet Ratia as chief people officer

Flipkart-owned fashion e-commerce venture Myntra Designs Pvt Ltd has roped in former Amazon India executive Manpreet Ratia as chief people officer and head of new initiatives.

Ratia will spearhead key HR initiatives and oversee talent acquisition and retention across verticals. He will also be responsible for driving new business initiatives. Ratia replaces Pooja Gupta, who quit in December 2015 after a five-year stint at the fashion portal.

An MBA alumnus from XLRI, Ratia was previously serving as the head of last mile operations at Amazon India, where he was responsible for shipment deliveries to and from the fulfillment centres and third party locations to end-customers. He has earlier worked at Citibank, General Electric, Oberoi Hotels and Nestle.

"His understanding of the e-commerce business and appreciation of innovative technologies will help Myntra drive new business initiatives," said Ananth Narayanan, chief executive officer, Myntra.

In a recent interview to The Economic Times, Binny Bansal, CEO, Flipkart said that he expected Myntra to turn profitable next year.

According to data available from VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle Network, for the year ending March 2015, Myntra recorded a 78.5% jump in gross revenue against Rs 773 crore in the year-ago period, but recorded an almost 330% increase in net losses at Rs 740 crore over the same year-ago period.

Myntra, which in May last decided to take the app-only route, has re-launched its desktop version after the strategy backfired. At the time of taking the app-only route, Myntra had claimed that 9 million people had downloaded its app and that it was targeting 5 million more downloads in three to four months' time. Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal at the time had said that about 95% traffic and 70% sales came through mobile devices.

Myntra has rejigged its senior management team after Binny Bansal took over as Flipkart's CEO. Ananth Naryanan was appointed as CEO while Mukesh Bansal, founder and CEO of Myntra, was made head of commerce platform at Flipkart. However, Mukesh Bansal later quit Flipkart and is gearing up to launch a sports, health and fitness startup along with Ankit Nagori, former chief business officer of Flipkart.

Meanwhile, it has also brought in former Housetrip.com executive Sharath Bulusu as vice president - product, former Freecharge executive Ravdeep Chawla as chief of staff, products at Myntra, former Xiaomi executive Mangesh Dalvi as associate vice president of product management, former eBay executive Sumit Borar as associate vice president of data sciences and former Open Table executive Aditya Singh as associate vice president, products.

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