Why Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy is offering you his job for a day

Flipkart has given a chance to one of its employees to run the show at the company. Padmini Pagadala will replace Kalyan Krishnamurthy as the Chief Executive Officer of Flipkart, albeit only for a day.

As part of Flipkart’s 'Big10' celebrations to mark Flipkart’s ten years of existence, the company hosted a competition for its employees across India to win the chance to spearhead India’s largest e-commerce company for one day. Bengaluru-based Pagadala, Associate Director, Design, Flipkart pipped the fellow Flipsters to the Flipkart top job.

Excited to hand over the reins of @Flipkart to #CEOForADay, Padmini Pagadala! #FlipkartBIG10#Talent@FlipkartStories@WorkAtFlipkartpic.twitter.com/60RrDmMVnd

— Kalyan Krishnamurthy (@_Kalyan_K) April 25, 2017

“Only a company like Flipkart could present this mammoth of a canvas to an artist-engineer,” Pagadala said on Flipkart Stories platform. The executive, who has been with Flipkart for about four years, designed the e-tailer’s first Fulfilment Centre.

Pagadala is credited with designing over 17 fulfilment centres and 20 transport centres for Flipkart. “When I go to any of these FCs, I cannot help but think that it was once a tiny AutoCAD file on my computer,” she said. She has been part of Flipkart’s business unit launches and is currently part of larger teams that are working on grocery and furniture verticals at the company.

As 'CEO of the Day', she will take stock of the business, attend key stakeholder meetings and hand out action points, with CEO Krishnamurthy accompanying him. The CEO’s day will start with Krishnamurthy personally greeting the winner over breakfast and introducing him to his immediate team, followed by some power packed meetings where the new ‘CEO’ and Kalyan will confer action items, and discuss the approach towards issues at hand.

"This is a fantastic opportunity for our talented Flipsters to get a taste of what it means to be CEO of a large, innovative company like Flipkart. We have a talented pool of people leading high-intensity teams who are helping us disrupt and innovate,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart, announcing the contest.

Launched in October 2007 in Bangalore by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart claims to have a user base of over 100 million and over one million sellers.