MakeMyTrip CEO Rajesh Magow returns to Flipkart's board after two years

The travel e-commerce major MakeMyTrip CEO and co-founder Rajesh Magow has once again joined the board of online retail entity Flipkart, the Mint reported.

Magow had left his position at the Flipkart board almost two years ago.

His joining coincides with Flipkart, the country's largest online retailer, raising USD 2.8 billion from big investors like SoftBank, Tencent, eBay and Microsoft.

After this fund-raising, Flipkart is expected to go for initial public offering (IPO).

Flipkart most likely brought Magow back keeping the upcoming IPO move in mind, according to sources who spoke to the Mint.

Magow had also helped in the process of MakeMyTrip going for public offering back in 2010. That made it the first Indian e-commerce firm to get listed in the United States.

One of the sources told the newspaper that Flipkart, at this juncture, required people with strong financial knowledge and experience to be on its board.

MakeMyTrip has also confirmed to Mint, Magow rejoining the Flipkart's board.

“I have always admired Flipkart for the impact it has made on India’s e-commerce space over the years,” Magow said in an email to the Mint while expressing he was pleased about the rejoining.

Other board members at Flipkart include co-founders Binny and Sachin Bansal, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Tiger Global's MD Lee Fixel and ex-CTO of Dropbox Aditya Agarwal.

Over the coming months, Flipkart's largest investor SoftBank will appoint a representative on Flipkart’s board, which has representatives from two other investors — Accel Partners and Naspers, as per the report.

Magow first took up a seat at Flipkart’s board in 2011, following e-commerce entity's first big fundraiser from Tiger Global. Back then, Flipkart mostly sold books and electronics.

He left the board in 2015, after seeing the company through a prosperous year in which Flipkart raised capital worth around USD 2.5 billion.