Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has stepped down from PhonePe’s board of directors, three quarters after making a similar move at the e-commerce giant.

Bengaluru-headquartered PhonePe said it had appointed Manish Sabharwal, an executive at staffing and HR firm Teamlease, as an independent director and audit committee chair.

Bansal played a key role in Flipkart’s acquisition of PhonePe in 2016 and sat on the fintech’s board ever since. The Walmart-backed startup, which operates the top mobile payments app in India, branched out of Flipkart in 2022 and was valued at $12 billion in funding rounds that netted about $850 million last year. 

Bansal still owns about 1% of PhonePe. Neither of the parties shared why he was leaving the board.

“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Binny Bansal for being one of PhonePe’s earliest and staunchest supporters,” Sameer Nigam, co-founder and chief executive of PhonePe, said in a statement. His active engagement, strategic guidance, and personal mentorship have profoundly enriched our discussions. Binny will be missed!”