Myntra gets Vikas Ahuja as CMO

This is the first time that the company has appointed a professional in the post of CMO.

E-commerce firm Myntra.com has appointed Vikas Ahuja as chief marketing officer (CMO) with immediate effect. In his new role, Ahuja will be responsible for the sales and marketing functions and driving the overall brand strategy at Myntra.

Ahuja comes with more than 18 years of sales and marketing experience, having held various leadership roles with Nestle. Prior to Myntra, Ahuja was the country business manager for Nestle India.

Sunjay Guleria, erstwhile VP, marketing, Myntra has now been shifted to the US to handle the Exclusively.in brand that Myntra acquired in November, 2012.

Mukesh Bansal, CEO and co-founder, Myntra, says, "This is a critical and incredibly exciting time for Myntra as we continue to scale our business. Our focus is on being the next generation fashion destination in the country."

Early in his career, Ahuja was part of the core management team of egurucool.com as its CMO and was responsible for the start up's overall marketing strategy, products and communication. He holds a B.Sc degree (Hons) in Economics from St. Xaviers', Kolkata and has completed MBA from IIM Calcutta.

In February, Myntra.com had initiated a pitch for a new creative agency. Earlier, the creative duty for the brand was with Taproot India, which launched two integrated communication campaigns continuing with its theme of 'Real life mein aisa hota hai kya'. Before Taproot, Happy Creative Services handled the company's creative mandate. The name of the new agency has not been announced.

Bengaluru-based Myntra is a fashion e-commerce portal which, in October 2007, received seed funding from Accel Partners (formerly Erasmic Venture Fund), Sasha Mirchandani from Mumbai Angels and another angel investor. In November 2008, Myntra raised funding of $5 million from NEA-IndoUS Ventures, IDG Ventures and Accel Partners. In the second round of funding led by Tiger Global and participated by existing investors IDG Ventures and Indo-US Venture Partners, Myntra raised $14 million and towards the end of 2011, again raised $20 million in its third round of funding led by Tiger Global.

Myntra.com has been on air consistently for almost the entire 2012-13 season. It launched its first brand campaign with a TVC in July, 2011. The commercial, titled 'A fashionable new age' was created by Happy Creative Services and aimed to juxtapose new age fashion with old world grit.