DMart appoints Lalit Ahuja as new coo, reappoints Bhaskaran N as whole-time director

MUMBAI: DMart’s parent has rejigged its top table. Avenue Supermarts told the exchanges on 11 July that its board signed off on a three-way management shuffle, effective across the rest of the year, touching two chief operating officer posts at once.

Bhaskaran N gets a fresh mandate. His re-appointment as whole-time director and chief operating officer runs from 17 October 2026 to 31 May 2028, pending shareholder approval. He has been with the company since 2008, arriving as vice president of hr before building out the staples business and the supply chain function; he now runs retail operations, backed by 32 years across corporate secretarial work, operations and hr, and stints at TCL India Holdings and Birla Sun Life Distribution.

Lalit Ahuja walks in as coo and senior management personnel from 13 July, bringing 28 years of fmcg and consumer-facing experience gathered at Philips India, General Mills, Dabur, Godrej Consumer Products, Mars and Apple, plus a decade at Zydus Wellness as senior vice president of sales and business head for the sub-continent.

Parvez Vandrewala, the outgoing coo, does not exit the building. From 1 November he moves to head of centre of excellence, retaining his senior managerial personnel status, a lateral shift rather than a departure.

None of the three, the filing notes, carries related-party baggage — no director-to-director relationships to disclose anywhere in the reshuffle. For a retailer that runs on operational precision, DMart has just added a second pair of hands to the till, and demoted no one on the way out.