Vice President — Grocery Retail Finance and Store-Density Economics

The mandate

A metropolitan grocery retailer is increasing local store density and integrating store-based fulfilment, but the economics of expansion are obscured by sales transfers between nearby locations. The vice president will own network business finance, linking store contribution, fresh-product loss and local fulfilment demand to investment choices. The central question is whether another outlet creates economic value in its cluster, not whether its individual sales plan can be made attractive. Finance must recognise cannibalisation, shared support and changing basket behaviour without assigning every cluster effect arbitrarily to the newest store.

This is open-ended employment with a first eighteen-month agenda across three metropolitan clusters. Thirty-one finance and planning professionals will support regional leaders, store economics and network investment. The VP will establish comparable store and cluster views, test the cash implications of lease and fit-out commitments and make fresh-product loss visible alongside availability. More volume can be financially weak if it requires heavier discounting, delivery support or waste. The analytical method must therefore explain the trade-off rather than rewarding one operating metric while charging its consequences to an unrelated central budget.

The role holds financial concurrence over store proposals, operating plans and local fulfilment investments within policy. Property, merchandising and operations teams retain lease negotiation, assortment and execution decisions. Material network commitments, closures and strategic format changes require the executive investment committee. The VP may reject unsupported financial assumptions, require comparable cluster evidence and recommend a staged opening or redesign. Controllers own reporting policy and inventory valuation. Finance should connect those controls to business decisions while avoiding a remit that makes it the operational owner of stock rotation, replenishment or store staffing.

Delhi NCR is the hybrid base, with routine store visits and scheduled Mumbai and Bengaluru cluster reviews. The continuing accountability includes capital discipline, regional P&L challenge and development of finance partners who understand local trading conditions. A successful leader will make evidence useful before a lease is committed, then compare the realised network effect with the original case. The purpose is not to prevent expansion whenever attribution is difficult; it is to make that uncertainty explicit, set meaningful learning gates and stop new openings from concealing deterioration in the economics of the surrounding network.

What you will own

• Establish store and cluster economics that separate incremental demand from transferred sales, ensuring new-location appraisals acknowledge local cannibalisation and shared support before capital is committed to an attractive standalone forecast.
• Set financial concurrence for store, lease and fulfilment proposals within delegation, requiring evidence of cash timing, fit-out exposure and realistic operating assumptions rather than accepting sales growth as sufficient investment justification.
• Challenge fresh-category economics with merchandising and operations leaders, connecting loss, discounting and availability to financial performance while keeping replenishment and assortment execution with their responsible owners.
• Lead regional planning and performance reviews across metropolitan clusters, comparing actual network effects with approved cases and recommending staged expansion, redesign or corrective action where the original logic no longer holds.
• Develop thirty-one finance professionals into credible retail partners, teaching them to investigate local trading patterns and reconcile their conclusions to financial records without substituting unsupported allocations for evidence.
• Present network capital choices and sensitivities to the investment committee, identifying the operating assumptions that require management commitment and the learning gates that would justify a subsequent expansion phase.

Candidate qualifications

• Evidence senior grocery or comparable multi-site retail finance responsibility, including network investment and regional P&L challenge. Describe an opening or expansion you changed after recognising cannibalisation or shared operating cost. Explain the store and cluster evidence, how you avoided double-counting the benefit and which decision followed. A portfolio of standalone store cases without the wider network effect is insufficient for this remit.
• Hold a Chartered Accountancy qualification and demonstrate capital-allocation, cash-flow and performance-management capability at senior-director or equivalent scope. You must reconcile store analysis with financial records and understand how lease, fit-out and inventory commitments change the cash case. Strong candidates distinguish business-finance judgement from formal accounting or property decisions while making their financial consequences understandable to operating leaders.
• Show practical analysis of grocery loss, markdowns or perishable-category economics. We need a case where improving availability or sales also created additional cost and you exposed the trade-off rather than celebrating one metric in isolation. Explain the operational assumptions supplied by specialists, the financial method and how the analysis changed category or network priorities without making finance the replenishment operator.
• Demonstrate leadership of regional finance partners and constructive challenge across property, merchandising and store operations. Describe how you handled a commercially urgent opening with uncertain local demand evidence. The seat requires a recommendation, clear sensitivity and accountable decision ownership, supported by managers who can maintain discipline after approval rather than depending on the VP to interpret every store's results personally.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 11 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-044.