Flipkart's woes continue; two more top-level exits amid unending markdowns

In what is proving to be a year of top-level exits and big markdowns, Flipkart Internet Pvt Ltd has lost another top executive—its former chief technology officer this time, after resignations of the chief financial officer and chief product officer, early this year.

A Flipkart spokesperson confirmed the exits, of Peeyush Ranjan and private label head Mausam Bhatt, from the company. The spokesperson confirmed that Ranjan is moving to homestay network AirBnB in US. The company clarified that Ranjan was holding the position of senior vice president of engineering while resigning, even though he was formerly the CTO of Flipkart.

Ranjan who joined the company in May last year, had moved back to US in June due to "personal reasons." He was formerly with Alphabet Inc's Google for close to 9 years in US. Ravi Garikipati, Flipkart's head of engineering, is expected to replace Ranjan.

The development was first reported by Mint on Wednesday.  The report said, "Adarsh Menon, who headed Flipkart's electronics business, will replace Bhatt as the head of Flipkart's yet-to-be-launched private-label business."

Another of Flipkart's hire from Google – chief product officer Punit Soni—had quit in April this year.

The Bengaluru-based firm's CFO Sanjay Baweja had quit Flipkart, last month, in the middle of festive season and while Flipkart was trying to raise funds.

On Tuesday, Flipkart got a shocking markdown by its investor Morgan Stanley. It marked down the value of its shares in Flipkart by 38.2% leaving India's largest e-commerce marketplace's valuation at $5.57 billion.

Flipkart, which saw its valuation decline this year in the wake of repeated markdowns by some of its investors, is reportedly trying to raise investment from world's largest retailer Walmart.

In fact, Ranjan's exit is the fifth big exit from Flipkart this year.

In another high profile departure, Mukesh Bansal, head of marketplace and a board member, and chief business officer Ankit Nagori had resigned in February.

In August, Flipkart reorganised its team and brought back the firm's key investor Tiger Global's senior executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy to head two major business units. Krishnamurthy used to be interim CFO at Flipkart before Baweja took charge.