Myntra Appoints Ananth Narayanan as CEO

Flipkart-owned online fashion store Myntra announced the appointment of Ananth Narayanan as its new chief executive officer on Wednesday.

Narayanan will start working at Myntra's Bengaluru headquarters from October 1, 2015 and will report to the Myntra board. Mukesh Bansal, the current CEO and co-founder, will assume the position of the Chairman of the Board and will be actively involved in contributing to Myntra's vision, strategy, and overall direction. His appointment comes four months after the firm shut down its mobile website to focus on an app-only model, as the firm aims towards profitability in the next two years.

The firm reportedly gets about 20 percent of its revenues from its in-house private labels, where margins are said to be one-and-a-half times those on branded goods.

Myntra had acquired Native5, a Bengaluru-based mobile app development platform company in May 2015, a technology led acquisition aimed at strengthening Myntra's mobile technology team.

Ananth Narayanan worked at Mckinsey & Company for 15 years, and has deep expertise in helping companies streamline operations and supply, product development, strategy, business plans, and organisational models. Narayanan received his B.E. from University of Madras and his Masters from the University of Michigan, in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

"Ananth will be a great leader to drive Myntra's aspiration to transform how people shop for fashion and to build category leading Fashion brands. Ananth joins at a time when Myntra has established a strong leadership in Fashion space and is leading the space in mobile revolution. I am looking forward to work with Ananth to shape the next phase in Myntra's evolution." said Mukesh Bansal.

Myntra was bought by Flipkart in May 2014 for about $300 million. Myntra's app on Google Play has registered over 10 million downloads, and hosts over 1,300 fashion and lifestyle brands and services over 12,000 pin codes across the country.