Snapdeal appoints ex-Housing CEO Jason Kothari as strategy & investment chief

Online marketplace Snapdeal has appointed ex-Housing CEO Jason Kothari as its chief strategy and investment officer, according to a statement.

Kothari will be joining Snapdeal on January 16.

"Jason is a strong business leader and entrepreneur who has already been the CEO of two successful companies. Rohit and I warmly welcome Jason to the Snapdeal family and believe we will achieve even greater heights with his addition," said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal.

Kothari became CEO of Housing in 2015, after the ouster of then CEO Rahul Yadav. After his appointment, he scaled back businesses, pruned workforce and shut operations in many cities to keep the company afloat. Housing investors also explored its merger with a number of players, including SoftBank-backed Snapdeal, before sealing the deal with PropTiger. The merged entity also raised $55 million in fresh funding from Real Estate Australia (REA) Group and SoftBank.

The company raised around $120 million in two years from investors, including Japanese telecom and Internet conglomerate SoftBank Group.

Following in the footsteps of Flipkart and Amazon, Snapdeal has tweaked its business model by setting up a wholesale unit, called E-Agility Pvt. Ltd., to buy products that will be sold to consumers directly. The company also launched a new logo and tagline 'Unbox Zindagi'.

Snapdeal also went through a top-level reorganisation in November, with each category business unit now having four broad work streams: portfolio management, key accounts management, brand alliances management and products life-cycle management.

The rejig saw category management head Saurabh Bansal move to head Snapdeal Instant, a service to deliver orders within 90 minutes. Category management, market development and brand alliances were consolidated into one team under senior vice president Vishal Chadha.

In October last year, the company appointed Groupon executive Pradeep Desai as senior vice president (engineering). Prior to that, it hired former Zoomcar executive Mayank Jain as head of growth.

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