BENGALURU | NEW DELHI: Kalyan Krishnamurthy has been named the new chief executive officer of Flipkart as India’s largest online retailer moves cofounder Binny Bansal to a new position as group CEO, in a management reshuffle that strengthens the influence wielded by its largest investor Tiger Global and completes a process begun a year ago when cofounder Sachin Bansal ceded the top spot.Krishnamurthy — a former executive in the New-York based investment firm — will be responsible for Flipkart’s profit and losses, marking a first for the Indian startup sector where cofounders of the country’s most valued Internet company have handed over the reins to a professional.Tiger Global owns about 35% stake in Flipkart, which was last valued at $15 billion. The investor could be preparing for a public listing for the Bengaluru-based ecommerce player in two to four years, according to senior company executives.“I will focus on building a portfolio of new high-growth businesses, capital allocation across group companies, IPO-readiness, and ensure each business of the group portfolio has a strong CEO in place,” Binny Bansal wrote in an email to employees announcing the management changes on Monday.Bansal said “not yet”, in reply to ET’s queries on whether Krishnamurthy has joined the board of Flipkart’s holding company registered in Singapore.Sachin Bansal, who was named executive chairman for the group in January 2016, will retain his position and work closely with Binny Bansal to drive businesses in areas such as fintech, private brands, business-to-business services, and logistics, according to the email cited earlier.Krishnamurthy joined Flipkart last June as head of the core ecommerce business and led the charge to consolidate the company’s lead over arch rival Amazon in the toughly contested season of festival sales.“We are a growth company and that is by far the single biggest agenda. Execution, growth and innovation are the buzzwords for 2017,” Krishnamurthy told ET.Bansal, as the new group CEO, will have oversight of Flipkart, fashion portals Myntra-Jabong and the payments business PhonePe.Krishnamurthy and the two other chief executives — Ananth Narayanan of fashion unit Myntra-Jabong and PhonePe CEO Sameer Nigam — will report to Binny Bansal.The new structure also includes functions such as mergers and acquisitions besides strategy, with Nishanth Verman, the head of corporate development, tasked with oversight of strategy. Experts are of the view that this top-order reshuffle is a natural progression. “The last festive season was a great success and Kalyan has been a key driving force behind this. He understands the business and financials,” said Anil Kumar, CEO of retail advisory firm RedSeer.A former eBay executive, Krishnamurthy joined Tiger Global Management in 2011where he served as a managing director till December 2016. He had earlier worked at Flipkart for two years between 2013 and 2014, heading finance and category management functions. “This (reshuffle) also gives Binny (Bansal) more time to think about the larger picture and at this stage Flipkart needs that founder-driven leadership at the group level,” said Kumar.For insiders, the change at the top did not come as a surprise. “Effectively this is how Flipkart was running in the last few months. So, in terms of day-to-day operations and reporting, there is zero change,” said an employee.2016 was a challenging year for Flipkart as it grappled with a host of problems from slow revenue growth to an increasingly aggressive Amazon, valuation mark-downs by investors and cost pressure, which also included laying off employees.With the latest rejig, there have also been additional changes to the organisation. Nitin Seth, the chief administrative officer, has been named the new COO for Flipkart, with additional oversight of the logistics arm Ekart and customer experience. Seth will continue to be responsible for HR, strategy and corporate functions for Flipkart.Seth, along with engineering organisation head Ravi Garikapati and chief financial officer Sriram V, will now report to Krishnamurthy. Ekart CEO Saikiran Krishnamurthy will move to an undisclosed new role, where he will work directly with Binny Bansal.