MUMBAI: The Network18 Group has roped in Manish Maheshawari as the new CEO of Web18. Maheshawari was previously with Indian eCommerce major Flipkart as VP and head of its seller ecosystem. Maheshawari will lead Network18’s digital and e-commerce assets which includes digital portals such as moneycontrol.com, ibnlive.com, in.com, firstpost.com, etc.

As the CEO of Web18, Maheshawari's immediate priorities will be  to drive content, monetization, new business, inorganic growth, and product portfolio management.

Talking about the new appointment, Network18 group chairman Adil Zainulbhai said, “Manish brings with him a good mix of Silicon Valley tech product culture and an understanding of ground realities of India. Both these qualities will be crucial as we take Network18 to the next level of digital transformation. He has a proven track record of taking up projects and achieving a scale of tens of millions, building cross-functional teams that deliver in large setting with an unflinching focus on customer experience.”

Maheshawari can be credited with growing Flipkart’s marketplace by 10x -- from 10,000 sellers in February 2015 to over 100,000 sellers in February 2016.  Prior to that, he co-founded txtWeb and grew it from scratch with over 16 million mobile users in India alone.