Senior-level churn at Snapdeal

CFO Moondhra's resignation comes as the firm is believed to have started groundwork for its IPO n the US

E-commerce marketplace Snapdeal seems to be going through a churn at senior levels.

Chief Financial Officer Aakash Moondhra's exit is the most prominent. Amitabh Misra, chief technology officer, had resigned end-February.

Moondhra’s resignation comes as the Delhi-based company is believed to have started the groundwork for its Initial Public Offer of equity in the US. Experts say a CFO resigning at this juncture is unusual.

Snapdeal is also hiring aggressively to address the high churn rate. “Due to the mercurial rise in the sector, a lot of opportunities are coming up, resulting in high churning. The management is looking to address the issue by hiring in quite a strong capacity,” said a source in the personnel department, who did not wish to be named.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

• Moondhra's resignation marks two senior exits in less than two months at Snapdeal  
• CFO has resigned at a time when the company is learnt to be preparing for its IPO in US
• During late Feb this year, Snapdeal’s chief technology officer Amitabh Misra had resigned
• Sources say Snapdeal is planning to address the churn by hiring across segments

When asked, a Snapdeal spokesperson said, “Moondhra will be moving to an advisory role and we are continuously hiring across all positions/departments,”

In line with that, Snapdeal has brought Vishal Mehrotra, as its head of marketing, business to business. Prior to this, Mehrotra spent about five years at Spencer's as marketing head and earlier steered private brands at the retail chain. He's also worked with Britannia, Dabur, ICICI Bank and British Sky Broadcasting.

Snapdeal had recently appointed Jeyandran Venugopal as technology advisor. Venugopal, former Yahoo and Amazon executive, is working directly with co-founder and operations head Rohit Bansal. The company plans to hire another 1,000 people for its technology needs, to compete with the largest e-commerce entity, Flipkart.

It wants to go for an acquisition spree, too, this year, for about Rs 6,200 crore.