Punit Soni, the much heralded Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Flipkart, has quit. Soni, a former Google top executive from Silicon Valley has put in his papers barely a year after joining the Indian ecommerce major where he was expected to usher in standout change. Flipkart has confirmed that Soni has quit and that this will be his last week in office. Soni is a very active person on Twitter, often sharing his experiences of travelling and settling in and ideas for the industry.

So, who is Punit Soni? Soni, a renowned name in the Silicon Valley, was a former vice-president of product management at Motorola. He was hired by Flipkart in early 2015 to lead product innovation at the etailer’s consumer products, marketplace and transaction platform. His role was to drive product strategy, design and product marketing functions to boost Flipkart’s user interface and product solutions.

Considering the fierce competition in the ecommerce segment where foreign companies like eBay and Amazon bring their dollar power to bear in the still nascent segment alongside niftier rivals like Snapdeal and others, Punit Soni was expected to contribute in a major way to put Flipkart alongside, if not at the front of the leading pack. Where this latest move leaves Flipkart strategy is anyone’s guess.

As a senior product leader with Google and Motorola, Punit Soni was involved in the development of Google News, Google Books, Google Plus, Google Mobile and a suite of Motorola devices, including Moto X, Moto G and Moto E. Soni completed his BTech in electronics and communications engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, before pursuing a masters in electrical engineering from the University of Wyoming and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rumours of his exit had been doing the rounds since January this year. Incidentally, January was the month, when Flikart’s founder Sachin Bansal decided to step down from the post of CEO, and Binny Bansal took over. Binny, who was chief operating officer (COO) before the rejig, launched Flipkart in 2007 with Sachin.