Head - Retail - Consumer & Lifestyle

Head - Retail | Consumer & Lifestyle | Pan-India Retail Expansion Experience: 12 - 15 Years Location: Mumbai Function: Retail / Sales / Business Leadership About the Opportunity: A rapidly growing, professionally managed consumer lifestyle business is entering an aggressive next phase of expansion and is looking to appoint a Head - Retail to lead and build its pan-India retail business. The organisation has established a strong consumer franchise and is now looking to significantly scale its physical retail footprint over the coming years. This is a high-ownership, business-building leadership role for an entrepreneurial retail leader who can move beyond managing an existing network and build a scalable, profitable and best-in-class retail platform. The Role: The Head - Retail will be responsible for developing and executing the overall retail growth strategy, with ownership across: - Develop the Pan-India retail expansion strategy and roadmap. - Lead aggressive expansion of the company's exclusive retail network across metros, Tier 1, Tier 2 and emerging markets. - Define the optimal COCO / FOFO / franchise-led retail model based on market potential and store economics. - Identify priority markets, cities, catchments and locations for expansion. - Own store-level P&L, productivity, profitability and return on investment. - Drive new-store development from location identification through launch and stabilisation. - Improve productivity and profitability of the existing store network. - Develop and institutionalise store economics, KPIs, productivity benchmarks and performance dashboards. - Build a differentiated customer experience and best-in-class retail execution. - Partner closely with Brand, Marketing, E-commerce, Supply Chain, Finance and Sales teams to build an integrated omnichannel consumer proposition. - Develop and lead a high-performance retail organisation capable of supporting rapid expansion. - Build strong relationships with franchise partners, landlords, developers and other strategic retail stakeholders. - Establish scalable systems, processes and governance to support a significantly larger retail network. - Provide regular business reviews and growth plans to the senior leadership/promoter group. What Are We Looking For?: We are looking for a business-oriented retail leader, not merely a retail operations professional. The ideal candidate would bring: - 12 - 15 years of relevant experience in retail, consumer, lifestyle, apparel, footwear, accessories, consumer electronics or other high-growth consumer businesses. - Experience managing and scaling large physical retail networks / EBOs. - Strong exposure to COCO, FOFO and/or franchise-led retail models. - Demonstrated experience in new-store expansion and market development. - Strong understanding of store economics, P&L, productivity and profitability. - Ability to operate across strategy as well as hands-on execution. - Strong commercial orientation with an entrepreneurial and ownership mindset. - Experience working in fast-paced, high-growth organisations. - Strong leadership capability and experience building teams. - Ability to influence senior stakeholders and work closely with promoters/business leadership. - MBA / PGDM from a reputed B-school preferred. - Candidates from IIMs / ISB / XLRI / FMS / SPJIMR / MDI / other leading B-schools would be preferred. What Makes This Role Different?: This is an opportunity to build, not merely manage, a retail business. The mandate involves significant expansion of the existing network and requires a leader who can create the strategy, operating model, organisation and economics required to build a large national retail platform.