Gopa Kumar joins Reliance Jewels as head

MUMBAI: Some careers run in a straight line. Gopa Kumar’s runs through the whole shop floor. Supermarkets, department stores, convenience chains, e-commerce and luxury have all had him on the payroll. This month the journey ends, for now, at a jeweller. Kumar has joined Reliance Jewels, part of Reliance Retail, as head, based in Mumbai.

The timing suits him. He arrives after seven years and five months as chief operating officer of Bhima Jewels in Cochin, where he handled business transformation, profit and loss, operations, retail format development, category management, marketing, digital, expansion and new technology. That is a long list for one desk, and it reads like a fair description of what a national jewellery chain needs.

His own account of the new job is just as wide. Kumar says he will drive business strategy, growth and transformation, with a focus on strategic growth and long-term value creation, retail expansion and market leadership, brand building and customer experience, revenue growth, profitability and operational excellence, merchandising, product strategy and commercial performance, digital innovation and omnichannel growth, and organisational capability and leadership development. He says he looks forward to building on the strong legacy of Reliance Jewels and unlocking new opportunities for growth.

Start with the scale he has handled before. At Future Group India, Kumar was business head for the south from June 2015 to May 2019. He ran and expanded a network of more than 170 supermarkets under the Nilgiris, Easyday, Heritage Fresh and Foodworld banners, and led the expansion, acquisition and integration of several brands. He also led the Sangam Direct omnichannel format as senior vice-president after Future Retail acquired it in October 2016. Jewellery is a different category from groceries, but running hundreds of outlets across a region calls for the same discipline.

Then look at the customer end. Kumar began at Shoppers’ Stop in February 1999, where he ran department store operations in Hyderabad, managed the loyalty programme in Mumbai, ran the flagship store in Andheri West and served as profit centre head of Crossword Bookstores. He then handled customer loyalty and churn for Tata Indicom at Tata Teleservices, across mobile, fixed wireless and wireline, and managed its customer care outlets. Jewellery is a business of repeat buyers and long relationships. Few executives have spent as many years studying why customers stay.

The digital strand matters too. At Unilever, Kumar was manager for acquisition and business development at Sangam Direct, a Hindustan Lever new ventures division that was a pioneer in food and grocery e-commerce in India. That was well before online shopping became routine. Reliance Retail now talks of digital commerce as a core growth engine, and its executives have said the new model is funded by offline profits. A head of jewellery who has built an online business from the early days has a head start.

His spells in other formats fill in the rest. He was general manager and head of operations and marketing at Piramyd Retail of the Piramal Group, which ran supermarkets across the country, and general manager and head of operations at Spinach, a chain of high-end convenience stores run by Wadhawan Retail. At Next Retail India he was associate vice-president for operations and business head of the company-owned chain of stores. At Sahara India he was vice-president for retail in the strategic management group, where he launched and shaped the group’s entry into several retail formats and planned its ventures into high-end luxury and lifestyle developments at Sahara Worldwide.

The employer is in a strong position to give him room. In the quarter ended September, Reliance Retail reported gross revenue of Rs 91,716 crore, up 6.4 per cent, and customer transactions grew 7 per cent. It operates 19,947 stores across 77.5 million sq ft, and its premium and luxury portfolio has crossed 1,000 exclusive brand stores. The festive season, when jewellery sells most, falls in the current quarter.

Kumar describes himself as a results-driven professional with a keen eye for market trends, and he says he is grateful for the journey so far and excited for what lies ahead. After more than two decades in Indian retail, he has the chance to put all of it to work in one business.