E-commerce major Amazon has appointed its veteran Samir Kumar will take over as the country manager for India replacing Manish Tiwary.

Kumar will take India responsibility in addition to his current charter of leading Amazon’s consumer businesses in the Middle East, South Africa and Turkey.

This comes after Manish Tiwary resigned as India’s country head in August and said he wanted to pursue opportunities outside the company from October. He has been at the helm of India operations since July 2020, is moving on after spending over eight years at the company.

Kumar, who joined Amazon in 1999, was among the key executives who came down to India in 2013 to set up the India business for the US e-commerce major and worked closely with Amit Agarwal, SVP for emerging markets, at Amazon.

“India remains an important priority for Amazon, and I am super excited about the opportunity ahead as we continue to transform lives and livelihoods. We have a strong local leadership bench and, along with Samir’s experiences across emerging markets, I am even more optimistic about our future plans to deliver for customers and the business in India,” said Agarwal.

As part of the change, the existing India leadership team—Saurabh Srivastava (Categories), Harsh Goyal (Everyday Essentials), Amit Nanda (Marketplace), and Aastha Jain (Growth Initiatives)—will now report to Samir. Additionally, Kishore Thota (Emerging Markets Shopping Experience) will report directly to Amit Nanda.

Kumar will work closely with Manish Tiwary during the transition period to ensure a smooth and strategic shift.

Commenting on the transition Agarwal said: “I am deeply appreciative of Manish’s leadership in steering Amazon.in to become the de facto starting point for Indians to buy and sell anything online. I wish him the best for his next chapter.”

India has turned out to be a key market for Amazon, prompting investment over the past few years. In February the US entity invested about $100 million in Amazon Seller Services. Tiwary said last year that the company had digitised more than two million small businesses in India in 2022 alone, and was on course to achieve its target of digitising 10 million of them by 2025.

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