Top Myntra Execs To Become Millionaires After Flipkart Deal

About two dozen top executives working with the fashion portal Myntra will become millionaires as the country's largest online retailer Flipkart completes a long-awaited acquisition of the company.

Among these executives are chief operating officer Ganesh Subramanian, chief technology and product officer Shamik Sharma, human resources head Pooja Gupta and chief marketing officer Vikas Ahuja. Their shares are approximately worth between $1 million and $4 million or up to Rs 25 crore.

But it is not just the top executives who will benefit. Almost all the employees in central functions such as technology and marketing, apart from the call centre and delivery staff, have received stock options.

This is contrary to what has been the norm in the country’s start-up sector, where founders make the most out of lucrative deals. "Employees are the least represented at the deal table," said Alok Goel, former chief operating officer of online ticketing firm redBus, which was acquired by South Africa's Naspers in 2013.

Goel, who is now the chief executive of Freecharge, an online recharge site, said that the start-ups set aside a stock pool, but do not distribute it. "At Freecharge, we have set aside a healthy stock pool and have already distributed a large chunk of it," he added.

"Fewer employees have stock in the company," said a recruitment consultant who has worked with Myntra. Naukri and MakeMyTrip are regarded as start-ups that shared their wealth with employees in the form of stock options.

The best-known Indian company for sharing its wealth with the employees is Infosys. Since 1994, the company has had three ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) plans that covered 32,000 employees.

"Myntra's is a good model for other start-ups and entrepreneurs," said Anshuman Das, managing partner at Longhouse Consulting, a recruitment firm that works with start-ups.