McKinsey’s Ananth Narayanan steps in as Myntra's CEO

After much speculation about who would step into the CEO’s position at mobile fashion store Myntra, the company has brought McKinsey director Ananth Narayanan to fill the position. He fills the space vacated by co-founder Mukesh Bansal, who is currently serving as the Head of Flipkart's commerce platform.

Narayanan is expected to join Myntra in October after spending 15 years with McKinsey as head, product development in Asia and firm’s automotive practice in India. He has worked in the auto, component and construction equipment sectors in India and Asia, and has also helped establish McKinsey’s China sourcing centre.

Flipkart has hired Saikiran Krishnamurthy as Chief Operating Officer of its commerce platform and Myntra has roped in Abhishek Verma as Head of Private Brands, both of whom earlier worked at McKinsey. While Myntra decided to turn an app-only format from April, its parent, Flipkart is expected to follow the same format by August-September. The duo is betting on the rise in smartphone users across India. When Myntra announced its decision, it witnessed over 90 percent of visitors through mobile, while that number is roughly 75 percent for Flipkart.

The number of mobile Internet users in December 2014 stood at 173 million, according to a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India and market researcher IMRB International. Another study by Google and AT Kearney, predicts that by 2017, India will have 480 million mobile Internet users. However, rival start-ups and industry experts feel that Myntra and Flipkart are taking a huge risk by shutting non-mobile platforms because desktop allows a user to access several websites at a time and compare products before buying.