Urban Ladder ropes in former Croma CEO Ajit Joshi to head offline push

Joshi will join as the President and chief operating officer of the firm

Furniture e-tailer Urban Ladder has appointed former Croma MD and CEO Ajit Joshi as its new Chief Operating Officer as it looks to build its offline presence ahead of the launch of behemoth IKEA's first India store in December.

A veteran with over 30 years of experience in retail, Joshi most recently served as the CEO of Reliance Industries Ltd's Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). In the role, he was overlooking the development Asia's second-largest real estate project, which housed a luxury mall, convention centre, numerous cinema halls and restaurants.

At Urban Ladder, Joshi will oversee the company's offline expansion, where it has committed to invest $15 million in the next one year. The company launched its first flagship experience centre in Bengaluru earlier this month, and plans to add two more similar stores in the city within the quarter.

"Ajit's addition to the team is a crucial step in scaling our retail and growth strategy, besides winning on the offline distribution front. Ajit's vast retail experience will be an invaluable asset to us and will help us build a distinctive buying experience across channels" said Ashish Goel, CEO & Co-Founder, Urban Ladder, in a statement.

In one of his previous stints, Joshi had served as the CEO of Croma, one of India's largest offline retail chains for consumer electronics owned by the Tata Group. Coincidentally, Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Group is an investor in Urban Ladder in his personal capacity.

Tata, who trained with iconic American architects and furniture designers Charles and Ray Eames, has designed a sofa that Urban Ladder plans to sell through its platform.

"Urban Ladder has made an incredible foray into retail with the first flagship experience centre in Bangalore. Having established ourselves as the leader in the online furniture market, we are now looking forward to the team conquering physical retail in the coming months," said Ajit Joshi, President and COO, Urban Ladder.

Urban Ladder claims it is the third-largest furniture brand in the country (considering both online as well as offline competition) and plans to become the largest in the space by the end of the current financial year. The company plans to open ten flagship offline experience centres across the country in the same timeline.

As the Swedish furniture giant IKEA finally announced its plans of opening its first store in Hyderabad in December, domestic online players Pepperfry and Urban Ladder expedited their plans to launch offline stores as well. While both companies had at an initial stage said that they would not set up stores, owing to the high costs involved in the process along with problems regarding an inefficient model, the customer's need to touch and feel products drove them to do so.