Flipkart's SVP Ankit Jain likely to join Swiggy Instamart as COO

Ankit Jain, senior vice president (SVP) at ecommerce platform Flipkart, is likely to join quick commerce firm Swiggy Instamart as chief operating officer (COO), replacing its current SVP and COO, Sairam Krishnamurthy, according to people in the know.

Jain was SVP and head of grocery and large supply chain at Flipkart till now. After working at Flipkart for over five years, Jain will now be working closely with Swiggy Instamart CEO Amitesh Jha, who also joined from the Walmart-owned company in August last year.

Prior to Flipkart, Jain worked with Unilever for over 14 years in managerial and leadership roles for its operations in India. According to Jain’s LinkedIn profile, his stint at Flipkart ended this month.

Krishnamurthy had joined Swiggy Instamart in August 2024 and was the platform’s first COO. He has close to 20 years of experience in leadership roles at FMCG, consumer tech and retail companies such as More Retail, Unilever and Hindustan Unilever Limited. It is not clear where Krishnamurthy will be heading next.

Email queries sent to Flipkart and Swiggy did not elicit a response.

The development was first reported by digital news publication Moneycontrol.

Several senior-level exits at Flipkart

Jain, who joined Flipkart in September 2019, is exiting the Walmart-owned e-commerce platform in the wake of many other senior-level exits.

The leadership churn at Flipkart comes at a time when it is attempting to focus on profitability ahead of a planned IPO in 2026.

Flipkart is looking to contain its cash burn and is limiting expansion of its quick commerce business, Minutes, to the top six to eight cities, as reported by ET on May 12.

In February last year, ET had reported on a leadership churn at Flipkart amid its push toward profitability. At the time, travel booking website Cleartrip’s head Ayyappan R, marketplace and categories leader Jha, fintech and payments head Dheeraj A, and growth and retention head, Bharath Ram, had exited the company.

Following Jha’s move from Flipkart to Swiggy, several other executives at the ecommerce firm jumped to the Bengaluru-based food and grocery delivery platform. These include Shalabh Shrivastava, who joined Swiggy as SVP of driver.org, Hari Kumar G, who joined as SVP and chief business officer for Instamart, and Kanika Tiwari, who joined as the quick commerce platform’s head of monetisation after spending eight years at Flipkart.