Flipkart has appointed Smriti Singh as its new chief human resources officer (CHRO), a position which has been vacant for the past 18 months.

According to industry sources, Singh is expected to join Flipkart in December, and will work closely with Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. Earlier, Nitin Seth, the Chief Operating Officer at Flipkart was handling the HR department at the company. After his exit in May last year, Krishnamurthy had taken the additional charge of HR.

Before her appointment as the CHRO at Flipkart Group, she was the vice president and HR head for Sony Pictures Networks India. Singh began her professional journey with Xerox. During her career, she has worked with Genpact and NBC Universal. She has even held the position of HR leader at GE Healthcare, Asia Pacific.

Singh’s appointment comes at a time when several employees at Flipkart and it fashion subsidiaries, Myntra and Jabong, are either looking out or are facing the axe, due to the organisational changes initiated by Walmart after acquiring the Flipkart Group. Reports suggest that with talks of merger of the three e-commerce platforms under the Flipkart Group, several senior executives are looking for new job opportunities. Given the turbulent times at the company and Amazon’s challenge, these top-level exits might even hurt Flipkart.