Movers & Shakers Of The Week [22 February – 27 February]

Myntra’s Finance Head Prabhakar Sunder Quits

Prabhakar Sunder, Myntra’s head of finance, has quit the company. Sunder had joined  Myntra in its early days and used to work closely with Mukesh Bansal. Besides finance, Sunder also headed the commercial and legal functions at Flipkart, with responsibilities including handling the strategic and corporate finance, according to the company’s website. Having worked at audit majors like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte, he has over 14 years of experience in the field of risk advisory services with. He has also worked with Southside Group of Companies and Boston Avenue Capital in his previous roles. Prabhakar is a certified chartered accountant.

Jabong Undergoes Leadership Changes

Saurabh Srivastava has quit as chief marketing officer at Jabong in less than five months of joining the online fashion portal. Srivastava had joined Jabong in October last year during the management churn following the exit of its founders Praveen Sinha and Arun Chandra Mohan.

On the other hand, Jabong has appointed former eBay executive Muralikrishnan B is as its chief operating officer. He will report to CEO Sanjeev Mohanty and will be responsible for overseeing the technology, product and digital marketing functions. Muralikrishnan is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC). In his previous role he was the COO of IndiaProperty, an online real estate portal, before which he co-founded Almond Wellness Tech Pvt Ltd, a startup in the digital health space. Previously, he had an eight-year-long stint with eBay where he was the country manager for India, Philippines & Malaysia, till he left the firm in 2013.

Aman Narain Joins As CEO Of BankBazaar.com International

BankBazaar.com has initiated its business expansion in Asia with special focus on Singapore. It has appointed Aman Narain as Chief Executive Officer for International Markets. He will help globalize the company’s made in India intellectual property. Narain was previously the Global Head of Digital Banking at Standard Chartered Bank, where he was responsible for all direct to consumer channels, including Online, Mobile & ATMs as well as all internal digital channels and social media. He is an International Relations & Economics honours graduate from Ohio Wesleyan University and has an MBA at INSEAD.

Qualcomm’s Senior-Director Finance Joins Indus OS

Indus OS, formerly known as Firstouch, appointed Qualcomm’s Senior Director-Finance Sanjay Somani as the Chief Financial Officer. Sanjay brings eighteen years of strategic and strong business understanding to Indus OS. His prior experience includes working in group financial management telecom, financial services and technology multinationals. During his stint as the Senior Director-Finance at Qualcomm, he has successfully built a team of dedicated finance professionals and exhibited his skills, abilities and knowledge and use of technology to contribute to drive bottom-line performance, process efficiency and improvements.

Farmville’s Mark Skagg Joins Moonfrog

Mark Skaggs, the co-creator of the popular game FarmVille has joined Bangalore-based Moonfrog Labs as a director. In his new role, he plans to develop new games for Indian smartphone users. After leaving Zynga, Mark Skaggs had remotely worked with Moonfrog Labs and will now join the startup’s leadership team. He will now help in launching new projects as well as mentor the founders.

Freshdesk Hires Seasoned Sales Leaders

Freshdesk appointed Bobby Jaffari as vice president of sales, North America, and Arun Mani as managing director of Continental Europe. Jaffari has a 15 years history of accomplishment in sales, business development and executive leadership. He has previously held sales leadership roles at Satmetrix Systems, Hightail and Cisco WebEx. He was also a key contributor to WebEx’s growth and played a key role in its $3.2 Bn acquisition by Cisco. Jaffari has been a key member at Alchemist Accelerator working with various companies and founders.

On the other hand, Mani previously headed sales at AppNexus. Prior to that, he has worked with McKinsey & Co. and Accenture. He calls himself a sales leader who has built strong teams, delivering value for clients and exceeding targets. Besides, he has experience in building business strategy development, business operations, product development and customer support.

Kraftly Appoints Akshay Ghulati As Chief Business Officer

Kraftly appointed Amazon’s former Head of Trade-in, Akshay Ghulati, as its Chief Business Officer. In his new role, Ghulati will help the company in scaling Kraftly’s business and identifying new areas of expansion. He worked as the Head of Trade-in at Amazon, UK and previously worked in different roles at Amazon’s retail and marketplace businesses. His academic experience lies in Ivy League schools like Wharton and Harvard Business School.

 

Paytm Appoints Krishna Hegde For Its Payments Bank

Paytm announced the appointment of Krishna Hegde, Barclays’ former Managing Director of Credit Research to lead consumer investment products at its new division. He will be spearheading a vital area of growth for the payments bank by leading and building bottom up the savings account investment portfolio, including mutual funds, money market funds, etc. During his 4-year-tenure with Barclays, he directly led credit strategy and credit research for financial institutions for Asia Pacific in Japan.

Other Developments

• Chinese smartphone upstart, OnePlus, plans to have a local engineering and product team in India, as it ramps up operations in the world’s second-largest smartphone market. They have already hired some Indian engineers and product people.
• Flipkart will spend more on technology this year, as it ramps up its online capabilities, especially in mobile, thereby boosting the headcount of its technology and engineering teams by at least half.