Silicon Valley hire Punit Soni quits Flipkart

Punit Soni, who joined India’s largest e-commerce Flipkart becoming one of the most talked about Silicon Valley hire, has quit after a nine-month stint. He had been brought onboard along with other highly paid tech executives from the Bay Area.

Soni was brought in to fashion Flipkart’s product strategy and strengthen its mobile commerce platform. An ex-Googler, Soni was not able to create much impact with Ping, an in-app chat feature which was the only launch he steered within Flipkart. Another ex-Googler hired by Soni, Niket Desai, has also quit. Insiders say that after Soni stepped down as the chief product officer, Flipkart couldn’t find any other role for him. For someone who had at Google launched various products and helped turned around Motorola Mobility, Soni did not find any definite role at Flipkart the last three months. This was also the time the e-tailer had announced top-level organisational reshuffle when Sachin Bansal passed on the CEO’s mantle to Binny Bansal, after which the company split its product function into three groups, making Soni’s role redundant.

Flipkart has seen many top-level exits in recent past, beginning with Mukesh Bansal and later followed by Ankit Nagori, one of the oldest employees at the e-commerce.