SoftBank Group Corp executive Lydia Jett has joined the board of online retailer Flipkart, The Economic Times reported, without specifying where it got the information from.
Jett looks after consumer Internet and e-commerce investments at SoftBank Vision Fund, according to her LinkedIn profile. The Vision Fund, a $93 billion fund that the Japanese telecom and Internet conglomerate, had invested about $2.4 billion (Rs 15,300 crore) in Flipkart in August.
Jett has been with the SoftBank since 2015. She had worked with investment banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan previously. She has an MBA from Stanford University.
Flipkart didn't respond to an email seeking comment till the time of filing this article.
The development comes shortly after Jett quit the board of e-commerce firm Snapdeal, as VCCircle reported earlier this month.
In July, Snapdeal, one of the first bets of SoftBank, had walked out of a merger deal with Flipkart.
SoftBank then sided with Flipkart by acquiring a stake in the e-commerce market leader. Snapdeal has drastically downsized its operations and pivoted into a pureplay marketplace model.
SoftBank also holds a board seat on digital payments firm Paytm, run by One 97 Communications. Citing company filings with the Registrar of Companies, the Press Trust of India reported that SoftBank's Kabir Misra joined Paytm’s board as an additional director. Misra, who has been with the SoftBank Group since 2005, is the president of SoftBank China & India Holdings, and also the vice president of SoftBank Inc.
Leading consumer Internet firms in India have, of late, seen major board-level movement, reflecting significant changes in their shareholding patterns.
Last month, VCCircle reported that Lee Fixel, partner at Tiger Global Management, resigned from the board of cab aggregator Ola, where the US-based hedge fund held a minority stake.
In February, SoftBank Group chief operating officer and managing director Jonathan Bullock had resigned from the boards of Snapdeal and Ola. Bullock had joined the boards of Snapdeal, Ola and Housing.com after SoftBank president Nikesh Arora quit in April 2015.
