Marketplace Fulfilment Breach Recovery Leader

The mandate

Three cities have missed the published delivery promise for six consecutive weeks after an aggressive dark-store launch outran replenishment discipline, courier supply and exception controls. The previous operations leader left following evidence that local teams suppressed cancellations by extending promise windows after orders were accepted. Refunds, rider churn, customer contacts and inventory write-offs are rising together, while growth and operations functions dispute the source of failure. The interim takes the executive recovery seat immediately and owns one version of network truth.

The appointment starts within three weeks and runs for nine months through the festive peak and the following demand-normalisation cycle. A permanent search will begin in month four once the board has agreed the enduring operating model and capability profile. The first thirty days must stabilise promise logic, expose capacity by fifteen-minute interval and stop uncontrolled city exceptions. Months two through six rebuild replenishment, dispatch, courier and care routines; the final quarter proves that gains survive promotion spikes without executive firefighting.

Handover is complete only when a permanent successor has operated two peak weekends against an independently reconciled service scorecard, every city has a named capacity owner, and order acceptance is governed by tested thresholds rather than commercial pressure. The successor must inherit a ninety-day risk register, store-level unit economics, rider-supply playbooks, exception authorities and a calendar of failure simulations. Customer promise, cancellation, contact and contribution measures must reconcile from event data to the weekly operating review.

The interim may reset daily operating cadences, suspend unsafe or uneconomic delivery zones, change shift and dispatch rules, replace temporary vendors within approved spend and hold functional leaders to recovery actions. Hiring or removing vice presidents, closing a dark store, changing customer pricing, altering worker classification, or committing more than ₹25 million requires chief-executive and committee approval. Product engineering owns code deployment, but the interim decides operational acceptance criteria and whether a release is safe for peak traffic.

New-city launches, brand repositioning, a full warehouse-management replacement and long-range international expansion remain outside this mandate. The seat will not adjudicate employment status, set courier remuneration policy without HR and legal review, or conceal service loss through revised definitions. Work stays centred on restoring a dependable promise in the existing five-city network, building accountable routines and leaving a successor with explicit operating boundaries rather than a temporary war room.

Why this seat is open

Rapid footprint growth created local workarounds faster than group controls, and the board lost confidence in reported service. The former leader’s exit occurred six weeks before the largest seasonal volume step-up. Directors want an experienced operator who can make immediate trade-offs, expose bad news early and leave a durable system for the permanent appointee.

What you will own

• Reconcile order, inventory, rider, cancellation, refund and contact events into one city-by-interval service baseline.
• Decide which zones, slots and promotional loads remain open against explicit capacity and contribution thresholds.
• Reset dark-store replenishment, picking, staging and dispatch routines with accountable owners for every failure handoff.
• Establish courier-supply forecasts that distinguish recruitment, activation, attendance, productivity, churn and weather-driven availability.
• Chair a daily recovery room that closes root causes instead of repeatedly expediting the same customer exceptions.
• Prove peak readiness through volume, outage, weather and constrained-rider simulations with documented stop conditions.
• Prepare the successor handover pack, operating calendar, unresolved-risk ledger and two-week shadow decision programme.

Candidate qualifications

• Has personally recovered a high-frequency fulfilment network where digital promises, inventory and human capacity diverged materially.
• Can evidence service restoration across multiple cities without buying performance through structurally negative delivery economics.
• Understands dark-store flow, last-mile dispatch, courier supply, demand shaping, customer care and event-level measurement.
• Has held executive decision rights during a peak incident and can name unpopular demand or footprint choices made.
• Can distinguish genuine capacity constraint from gaming, latency, taxonomy drift and incentives embedded in operating reports.
• Brings credible India marketplace leadership and can work constructively with founders, product teams and frontline contractors.

Non-negotiables

• Can start in Bengaluru within three weeks and travel weekly through the five-city network.
• Will use one reconciled promise metric and disclose any change in definition before reporting improvement.
• Has managed contracted courier capacity at meaningful scale; warehouse-only leadership is insufficient.
• Will not trade worker safety, customer remedy or truthful cancellation reporting for a cosmetic service recovery.

1. 49 words maximum. Which fulfilment metric did you distrust first in a distressed marketplace, and what transaction-level evidence changed the recovery plan?
2. 49 words maximum. What is your earliest start date, and which peak operating periods have you personally commanded?
3. 49 words maximum. Describe one zone, slot or promotion you closed despite revenue pressure and the trigger you used.