Nykaa Restructures Leadership Team Following Departure Of Senior Executives

Almost a month after many of its top-level executives quit the company, beauty ecommerce leader Nykaa on Monday (April 24) said it has onboarded new senior leaders in its teams across technology, finance, business, and marketing to spearhead the next phase of growth. 

“The new leaders will join existing leadership, now comprising over 50 leaders, and will be instrumental in driving the company’s growth agenda forward. Each leader has been carefully selected for their maturity, wealth of experience, industry expertise, and passion for innovation and growth,” the company said.

The New Leadership Roles

In its technology and product segment, Nykaa has named former Amazon employee Rajesh Uppalapati as the chief technology officer.

As per its earlier announcement, P Ganesh, who worked with companies such as TAFE Group, Pidilite Industries, Godrej Group, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, has been appointed as the chief financial officer of the company.

Sujeet Jain has been named the chief legal and regulatory officer. Earlier, he has worked across diversified sectors at organisations such as Vodafone Idea, Shaadi.com, Ultratech Cement, Viacom18.  

Vishal Gupta has been appointed as the head of beauty consumer business at Nykaa to lead innovation, brand building, growth and profitability for the business. He will also lead Superstore By Nykaa, the eB2B distribution business. 

The company has roped in Sudhakar Y Mhaskar as the chief R&D and quality officer to lead innovation at its consumer business. 

Nykaa’s Growing Troubles

Last month, five senior executives of Nykaa quit the company. Among them were chief commercial operations officer Manoj Gandhi, chief business officer of fashion division Gopal Asthana, chief executive officer of wholesale business Vikas Gupta, vice-president Shuchi Pandya of Nykaa fashion’s owned brands vertical and Nykaa fashion’s VP of finance Lalit Pruthi. 

A Nykaa spokesperson then said that some of these mid-level exits were part of the standard annual appraisal and transition process, wherein people exit due to performance or to pursue other opportunities.

The beauty ecommerce giant reported a 70.7% year-on-year (YoY) decline in its consolidated net profit to INR 8.5 Cr in the December quarter of the financial year 2022-23 (FY23). Nykaa had reported a net profit of INR 29 Cr in the corresponding quarter last year. 

However, its operating revenue rose 33.2% to INR 1,462.8 Cr in the reporting quarter from INR 1,098 Cr in Q3 FY22. 

Nykaa is also facing intense competition with the entry of established players like Reliance in the beauty commerce space through its recently-launched platform Tira. Many brokerages raised alarm on the increasing competition, with Macquarie saying that the entry of big players such as Tata and Reliance Retail in the beauty space could ‘exacerbate’ the problems for Nykaa.