IPO-bound Flipkart’s group CFO Venkataraman to exit

Walmart-owned e-commerce major Flipkart said on Friday its Group Chief Financial Officer Sriram Venkataraman will be stepping down. The role will be taken over by Ravi Iyer, who has been with the company for more than a decade and was named the CFO of Flipkart’s marketplace arm last year.

Venkataraman will remain with the company for a period of time for a smooth transition, the company said in a statement. He has been with Flipkart since 2015 and has held several roles during his stint. Previously, Venkataraman spent over a decade at HUL.

The company also announced the rejoining of Nishant Verman as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Partnerships. Nishant rejoined Flipkart following his entrepreneurial venture, Bzaar, a cross-border exports platform. In his last stint between 2015-2020, Verman was the Chief of Staff to Mukesh Bansal, CEO of Flipkart Commerce Platform, and later VP of corporate development and partnerships.

These changes come at a time when the company is preparing for a domestic listing. In December last year, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) approved Flipkart’s long-pending proposal to shift its domicile from Singapore to India, clearing a critical regulatory hurdle. The order approved a two-step restructuring that will see Flipkart’s Singapore-based holding entities merged into its Indian arm, Flipkart Internet.

The approval allows the company to proceed with the consolidation of eight overseas entities into the Bengaluru-headquartered firm, effectively unwinding its complex foreign holding structure. As part of the process, Flipkart is now seeking clearance from the government under Press Note 3 norms, sources said, since Chinese technology major Tencent continues to hold around a 5% stake in the company.

Earlier this month, the government relaxed Press Note 3 regulations, allowing foreign investments with less than 10% beneficial ownership from land-bordering countries to bypass the approval route for faster clearances.

In the run-up to a potential IPO, Flipkart has been focusing on reigning in losses and maintaining healthy top-line growth, even as India’s broader e-commerce growth slows. In FY25, Flipkart Internet, which operates the core marketplace business, reported a 14% year-on-year rise in revenue to Rs 20,493 crore, while cutting losses by 37% to Rs 1,494 crore.

Earlier this month, the company also fired around 250-300 employees across business functions as part of its annual performance review, sources said. These exits accounted for around 1.5% of its roughly 20,000-strong workforce.