Myntra Appoints Former Amazon Executive Jeyandran Venugopal as CTO

Flipkart-owned fashion e-tailer Myntra has appointed former Amazon and Snapdeal executive Jeyandran Venugopal as its chief technology officer (CTO).

Venugopal is set to replace Ajit Narayanan, who held the responsibility since September last year and 'is moving on to pursue his interests outside the organisation.' Venugopal is expected to join Myntra in the second week of June and will report to CEO Ananth Narayanan.

Jeyandran Venogopal will responsible for ramping up technology functions related to data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, among other things.

The online apparel seller has also made five key hires to strengthen its core technology team, including a “vice-president of engineering and a distinguished architect from companies such as Ola and Intuit.”

Venugopal would be Myntra’s third CTO in less than a year. Prior to Narayanan, Shamik Sharma led the company’s tech vertical for four years starting from 2012.

Venugopal holds a master’s in mechanical engineering as well as computer science from University of Illinois, has nearly 18 years’ experience. He is also founder of Eclinic247, a consumer healthcare startup. In his earlier stints, he has served at Snapdeal, Yahoo and Amazon Web Services, handling critical technology functions.

The outgoing CTO Narayanan has said that Myntra was in nascent stages of overhauling its technology platform and integrating it deeper with artificial intelligence and machine learning, across business functions. While personalisation on the consumer side of things will remain one of its core areas, there will also be tech enhancements on the supply chain side of things.

Last month, Myntra acqui-hired logistics startup InLogg to help solve delivery inefficiencies in terms of cost and reach.

The apparel e-tailer, which recently opened its first offline store in Bangalore, hit a revenue run rate of Rs 500 crore in 2016 and expects to achieve Rs 1,000 crore by FY2019.

Ever since Myntra acquired Jabong for $70 million in an all-cash deal last year, the e-tailer is perceived as the market leader in the online fashion and lifestyle category, accounting for nearly 70% of the market share by various estimates.