Myntra may see cut in workforce after CEO exit

BENGALURU: As Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan and CFO Dipanjan Basu decide to put in their papers, after Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal’s exit from the company, the fashion portal could also see its total workforce cut by a significant number, sources said.

Two Myntra executives separately told TOI about talks of a potential cut in workforce doing the rounds within the company for a couple of months. Sources added this number could be 100, going up to as high as 400-500. Narayanan joined Myntra as CEO in July 2015, taking over from Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal, who was on his way out from the fashion-focused e-tailer. Narayanan came to Myntra from Mckinsey & Co. He joined the company at a time when several executives from consultancy companies were joining Flipkart group companies and other top internet majors. Basu joined the company from Wipro a little over two years ago.



At the time of filing of this report, Myntra staff was yet to be told about the exit of their CEO and CFO. “There have been question marks over the future of Jabong and potential cost trimming of workforce,” a mid-level staffer said. Most recently, Jabong’s CEO Gunjan Soni had resigned from the company along with Ananya Tripathi who was head of strategy and category business.

Narayanan at Myntra had tried to scale the private label business with brands like Roadster and also pushed the company’s foray into offline channel with brick-and-mortar stores. Flipkart's fashion business is headed by Rishi Vasudev. Flipkart has earlier claimed its fashion business had surpassed Myntra in gross sales. Under Narayanan, the company has also been trying to inch closer to profitability. Myntra's losses went down by about 25% to Rs 655 crore for the financial year ending 2017.

He started building new businesses like beauty products and accessories. Sources say future of these new businesses remains uncertain with Narayanan moving on from Myntra.