Bharti Retail ropes in former Walmart India head Jain as CEO

Also appoints Pankaj Madan, another senior executive of erstwhile Bharti-Walmart, as CFO

Raj Jain, former Walmart India head, has been named chief executive of Bharti Retail. Jain, 54, who quit the American retail chain in June 2013 under mysterious circumstances and ahead of a split between Walmart and Bharti, had thrown a surprise by joining the Sunil Mittal-led group last October as an advisor to its retail business.

With this, Bharti Retail, which has seen several changes at the top, gets a chief after a long gap. Till some months ago, Mitchell Slape was heading Bharti Retail as its COO. Slape, a Walmart veteran, was meant to give a direction to the business, but he was moved back to the US last year in a sudden decision.

Now, as the separation between Walmart and Bharti, the almost equal partnership in the cash-and-carry or wholesale business, has been completed, Jain has formally taken over as the CEO of Bharti Retail.

Bharti Retail owns and operates over 200 EasyDay stores across the country, and is planning a significant investment and expansion this year. All through 2013, the retail chain did not open new stores due to partnership issues in its cash-and-carry business and policy hurdles for front-end retail.

While Walmart and Bharti had plans of jointly rolling out multi-brand retail stores, now the American chain will independently run the cash-and-carry business and Bharti will look at EasyDay on its own. Walmart may review its multi-brand strategy for the India market later.           

For Jain, EasyDay will be a familiar business as Walmart was providing back-end and logistic support to Bharti group’s retail business so far.

Besides Jain, Bharti Retail has appointed Pankaj Madan as the chief financial officer (CFO). Madan was CFO at Bharti-Walmart earlier but was suspended in the wake of an internal investigation into corruption allegations in 2012.

Industry insiders say appointment of Jain as the new CEO is no surprise. Bharti does not have much retail experience, and Raj Jain is the one who had led the joint venture.

The company has cited Jain’s “vast experience across retail, consumer durable and FMCG sectors”, as one of the reasons for his appointment. The new appointments will help boost the company’s growth plans, Bharti said.

The company is, however, not looking at any massive hiring. The focus will clearly be on increasing the efficiency of  current operations and make the most of the existing stores and hypermarkets, while looking at expansion.

Even as there’s a buzz on Bharti talking to foreign players for a stake sale, company executives ruled out any such plans at the moment.
THE RISE OF RAJ JAIN

• Joined Walmart in 2006 after stints at Unilever and Whirlpool
• Worked for 1 year at China division of Walmart, then shifted as India head of the American chain for cash-and-carry venture with Bharti
• Quit Walmart in June 2013 under mysterious circumstances
• Joined Bharti Retail as advisor in October 2013 as Walmart and Bharti parted ways
• Named chief executive officer of Bharti Retail in January 2014

Sources: Company and industry