Start-up wave is settling down as senior-level executives are finding their way back to old and established companies

There was a time when start-ups were considered to be the next big thing, but seems like slowly and steadily, they are losing their thunder. Senior-level executives who had joined start-ups in that wave have now come back to their traditional, established companies and conglomerates, and several others are thinking of doing the same.

The reasons, one may ask, would be the lack of innovation opportunities, culture misfit, and redundant roles, and they have forced senior leaders from Flipkart, Jabong, Housing.com, Ola and others to leave these start-ups and move back to old and established companies.

For example, Peshwa Acharya, Housing.com's chief of strategy, marketing and franchising, left the real estate start-up and joined a large travel, holiday and hospitality conglomerate as its chief marketing officer in November last year. Similarly, Suvomoy Sarkar from Ola left the transport aggregator start-up to join Sears Holdings Corporation as head of the India analytics centre in April this year.

Manish Maheshwari, who was associated with e-commerce start-up Flipkart, has now joined Network 18 digital as its CEO, and Vikas Ahuja left his post as Myntra’s Chief Marketing Officer to join The Oberoi Group.

Some other names are Aparna Ballakur, who joined PayU as VP-HR after her stint with Flipkart as Chief People Officer; Deepak Menon, who joined Microsoft after leaving Jabong; and Vikram Dasu, the now CEO of Avenue Ecommerce Ltd - Dmart, who left HomeShop18.


It’s the fast-paced environment and also the lack of cutting-edge innovation which is frustrating several senior-level executives in Indian start-ups, and the fact that investors are tightening their moneybags has worked as the last straw.

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