After Bharti Walmart and Reliance Retail, Bharti Retail is going to have a Walmart global hand at the helm, sources said.
Bharti Retail has hired Mitchell Slape, a vice-president for Walmart?s Mexico unit, as the chief operating officer and he would be replacing Andrew Levermore, who quit Bharti Retail late last year to start his own venture in his native country South Africa.
Slape has been a Walmart veteran for 16 years and is currently the vice-president of the Superama upmarket supermarket chain of Walmart de Mexico SAB de CV.
?There has been no announcement regarding the COO of Bharti Retail. We will be happy to share the details with you once the announcement is made,? a Bharti Retail spokesperson said in an emailed reply to FE.
As India?s nascent organised retail sector is treading on a major learning curve, a host of home-grown retailers are hiring global hands to spearhead operations.
Last year, Reliance Retail roped in Rob Cissell and Shawn Gray from Walmart China as CEO and COO, respectively.
Reliance Retail had earlier poached a bunch of executives from Tesco Lotus in Thailand, including Gwyn Sundagul, a former chief marketing officer for Tesco Lotus, who was hired as the chief executive for Reliance Retail. Sundagul recently quit his job in Reliance Industries? consumer businesses, including insurance and telecom.
Similarly, HyperCity Retail hired Mark Ashman, a former head of Marks & Spencer in India as chief executive. HyperCity has another expatriate, Simon Hooper, as chief of operations.
In 2010, the Future Group hired Mark Ladham from as the UK-based home improvement retailer Kingfisher to head the Kishore Biyani-led firm?s home and furnishing unit.
A Reliance Retail executive said several more overseas hires are in the pipeline for the company from companies including Walmart and Shoprite, among others.
Slape will be the third COO for Bharti Retail since its inception in 2009, when Bharti Enterprises rolled out its wholly-owned network of stores called Easyday. Prior to that, Bharti had partnered with Walmart in a wholesale retailing joint venture. The alliance has so far opened 17 BestPrice modern wholesale stores in various cities and plans to add about 15 such cash-and-carry stores by December.
On the other hand, Bharti Retail, that receives technological and logistical assistance from Walmart, operates 188 Easyday-branded convenience stores and supermarkets in a dozen states. It plans to add 35-40 stores in the current year.