Top exits in internet companies in India this week

Moneycontrol BureauThe passing month saw many internet companies coming under the pressure of demonetisation and recording decline in sales due to lack of cash currency with the consumers. Many of the them have also witnessed exits of some key executives, citing different reasons. While these leadership exits may have been pre-planned, they come at a time when Indian companies are under pressure to control costs. Here are a few top exits announced in the past week:Flipkart CTO Piyush Ranjan: The chief technology officer of Flipkart, Peeyush Ranjan will exit the company at the end of December to join Airbnb in the US. Ranjan had been flown in by Flipkart from the Silicon Valley and was seen as a much celebrated hiring by the company. A couple of months ago, Ranjan who was heading engineering for the commerce unit he was also given the responsibility to handle the advertising and Ekart’s engineering teams. According to Ranjan, family issues made him move to US and it was important for him to look for an opportunity there, rather than being in Flipkart.Meru Cabs CEO Siddhartha Pahwa: Pahwa who served the cab service provider as its chief executive officer quit the firm, earlier this week citing personal reasons. He was with Meru for almost half a decade. The exit comes at a time when Meru is facing tough competition from the cab aggregating start-ups such as Uber and Ola. For now, Pahwa has said, he will take a break and will soon start working on a few ideas that he has in his mind. He is in the company till December end. Godaddy India MD Rajiv Sodhi: Sodhi quit as the vice president and managing director of internet domain registrar and web hosting company, GoDaddy India, this week. Sodhi who had come to GoDaddy from Microsoft is going back to the firm and will lead its cloud and server business.