Amazon veteran Samir Kumar to replace Manish Tiwary as head of India operations

Samir Kumar, who joined Amazon in 1999, was a part of the original team that planned and launched Amazon India in 2013.

Samir Kumar, an Amazon veteran since 1999, has been made the country manager for India, the e-commerce major said in a note on September 18. This is an additional responsibility for Kumar who will continue to lead Amazon's consumer businesses in the Middle East, South Africa and Turkey.

The move comes after Manish Tiwary abruptly resigned as the country head for India on August 6 and said he wanted to pursue opportunities outside the company from October. Tiwary, who has been at the helm of India operations since July 2020, is moving on after spending over eight years at the company.

Tiwary quit after an alleged power struggle between him and Amit Agarwal, senior vice president (SVP) for emerging markets at Amazon, Moneycontrol had reported earlier. Agarwal wanted greater control over the team in India, sources had said earlier. Agarwal, who joined Amazon in 1999, was part of founder Jeff Bezos' famed S team (senior leadership team), who was tasked with building Amazon’s operations in India, during its early days in 2013.

Agarwal has worked closely with Samir Kumar in the past and the duo will now oversee India operations together.

"India remains an important priority for Amazon, and I am super excited about the opportunity ahead as we continue to transform lives and livelihoods. We have a strong local leadership bench and, along with Samir’s experiences across Emerging Markets, I am even more optimistic about our future plans to deliver for customers and the business in India," Agarwal said in the note.

Amazon India will follow a dual leadership structure, as reported by Moneycontrol earlier.

"...the current Amazon.in leadership team of Saurabh Srivastava (Categories), Harsh Goyal (Everyday Essentials), Amit Nanda (Marketplace), and Aastha Jain (Growth Initiatives) will now report to Samir. Kishore Thota (Emerging Markets Shopping Experience) will report to Amit directly," the company's note added.

Kumar has his task cut out for him. Amazon has lagged homegrown ecommerce platform Flipkart and lost market share to the Walmart-owned company in India. It has even been absent even in the quick commerce race, where players like Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Tata BigBasket, Flipkart Minutes and others continue to make headway.