Amazon executive Samir Kumar may replace Manish Tiwary as India head

MUMBAI: Amazon executive Samir Kumar may step in as the India head of the e-commerce firm, replacing Manish Tiwary who has resigned, sources aware of the discussions told TOI. After spending more than eight years at Amazon, Tiwary has quit as the India country manager to pursue an external opportunity and will leave after October. “Samir looks after emerging markets and has deep India experience,” sources said.

Kumar, an Amazon veteran has spent over two decades at the firm and is currently based in the company’s headquarters in Seattle. Kumar who joined Amazon as a systems engineer in 1999 is currently vice-president, international consumer responsible for growing exports, expanding global store and working on next set of countries for consumer business. Senior Amazon executives Saurabh Srivastava and Vivek Somareddy were also understood to have been in the fray for the role. The idea always was to tap into Amazon’s internal talent pool for the top India job, sources said. “We do not comment on speculations,” an Amazon India spokesperson said in response to queries.

Kumar will take over the India business at a time when competition in the market is deepening with players like Meesho and Walmart’s Flipkart betting bigger on the space.

Besides, a clutch of quick commerce firms are fast venturing into the territory of e-commerce players, eating into their market share and nudging players like Flipkart to launch their own rapid delivery services.