Flipkart hires Bain & Co partner Dinkar Ayilavarapu as VP-corp strategy

Reports to CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy; Development comes amid company plans for IPO

Flipkart has appointed Dinkar Ayilavarapu, a partner at consulting firm Bain & Company, as vice president for corporate strategy at the e-commerce firm. In this role, Ayilavarapu will report to Flipkart Group chief executive officer Kalyan Krishnamurthy. The development comes at a time when the company is aiming for an initial public offering (IPO) by next year.

“He (Ayilavarapu) will lead the corporate strategy team working closely with our business leaders to further strengthen our vision and OKR (objectives and key results) planning,” said Krishnamurthy, in a letter, addressed to the employees and seen by Business Standard. “The business strategy and business transformation team will continue to be part of the corporate strategy team.”

Ayilavarapu comes with 18 years of rich experience. Prior to joining Flipkart, he was a partner at Bain & Company. He spent 14 years at Bain, in their India, New York and South Africa offices and was a part of their technology, media, telecom and M&A practices.

He was a key member of Bain's Results Delivery and Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practices in the Asia-Pacific region.

At Bain, he was the author of the India Philanthropy Report and he is also a member of the CII National Committee on Regulatory Affairs. Ayilavarapu has also worked with ITC Ltd (in their Foods & Tobacco division) and with technology company Accenture.

He earned an MBA from IIM Calcutta and holds a graduate degree in BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from Delhi University.

Top Flipkart officials Prasanna Rajan and Saket Jain, will report to Ayilavarapu in their current roles.

Krishnamurthy said the current (pandemic) situation in the country has been quite challenging on multiple fronts.

“It fills me with pride that despite all challenges, we have been able to come together and help each other,” said Krishnamurthy. “We continue to work together as an organisation in leading from the front as we serve our customers and seller partners in these critical times. We are also focussed on growing our teams across the organisation, strengthening efforts towards creating shared value across the ecosystem.”