bengaluru kalyan krishnamurthy heads the most critical functions at indias largest ecommerce player with retail business development advertising and products falling under his purview a former managing director at flipkarts largest investor new yorkbased tiger global krishnamurthy is known for being acutely media shy and taciturn but at the same time is described as a canny operator those traits at least the one of steering clear from press interviews and staying under the radar are his exemployer tigers credo too having made a return to flipkart in june this year his second stint at the bengalurubased company krishnamurthys been tasked with a much wider role this time around theres a consensus in the local startup ecosystem that the 44yearolds comeback to flipkart was much needed in the backdrop of its fierce fight with amazon in his first ever interaction with any media he tells toi that the reason for his return was because he had skills which the company found useful he demurred at the suggestion that he was brought in to pull flipkart out of a disastrous period its been traversing through since 2015 having taken on the title of chief financial officer three years back krishnamurthy was handed over the reigns of the retail business before he left at the end of 2014 a close aide of tiger globals lee fixel arguably the most fervent backer of indian consumer internet startups till not so long back his first big assignment after rejoining flipkart was to successfully steer the annual fiveday sale event big billion days bbd while the flagship sale saw the etailer notch up better sales compared to archrival amazon the battle ahead is cutthroat and capital guzzling as the jeff bezosled behemoth swoops down to corner the online retail market circa 2013 versus 2016 things are different now at flipkart from the time krishnamurthy left two year ago last year changed the course for the nineyearold company in its quest for ecommerce dominance in india a string of seniorlevel executives left the focus on turning mobile apponly gave amazon a leg up in desktop traffic and new and expensive hires from silicon valley did not make the desired impact creating a chasm between the old and new guard when i came in 2013 it was agreed i would go back there was no big reason behind it this is a different chapter im here to stay and put my head down and work he says sitting in flipkarts headquarters after the madness of bbd is over whats come in handy for krishnamurthy so far is his experience in internet commerce firms like ebay and his execution capabilities which are lauded by most people whove worked with him a founder from a tiger global portfolio company who did not want to be named says he asked a lot of probing questions gave us solid insights and continuously reminded us to stay focussed another entrepreneur says krishnamurthys focused on identifying the key to success and going after