Lodha makes 11 top level changes to meet Rs 20,000 crore turnover target

Realty developer Lodha Group has appointed close to 11 senior associates at various levels, including CXO, to support its aim to achieve a turnover of Rs 20,000 crore in the next five years. Many of those hired in the past three months have experience in the consumer and banking industries.
Recent appointments include Chief Financial Officer Jayant Mehrotra, Chief Sales Officer Prashant Bindal, Vice-President, Corporate Finance and Equity, Hari Kishan Movva, and Akhil Jain, Executive Vice-President, sales.

"We are a strong believer that our growth is led by our people, talent and our collective ability to learn. We aim to be among India's 10 most profitable companies, other than state-owned entities, with a turnover of over Rs 20,000 crore by 2021," Lodha Group MD Abhishek Lodha told ET. "To achieve this ambition, we have identified talent as an important pillar of growth and will continue to invest relentlessly in building a strong, diverse and professional team."

Seeking people with consumer and banking experience was a deliberate decision, he said. The group currently employs more than 4,000 associates and around 75% of its management is from a consulting background, hailing from McKinsey, BCG, Bain and Accenture.

"We look up to Hindustan Unilever, take inspiration from the growth they have achieved in the past few years. We are currently at the size they were in 2006-07 and aim to achieve the size that they are today over the next five years," he said.

Lodha Group's consolidated revenue for the year ended March 2015 was Rs 8,000 crore. Its chief marketing officer and CFO left the company last year to work on a plan to start a real estate company operating in the Mumbai property market.

Bindal will head sales for the organisation, excluding the Lodha Luxury collection and NRI sales. Bindal used to be chief executive officer at Spice Mobility prior to this and has more than 18 years of experience in leadership positions in companies such as Coca-Cola, Cadbury and Walmart.

According to Bindal, who has not worked in realty before, the decision to join Lodha was relatively easy because the group functions quite like a consumer goods company.

"We want to identify and connect with consumer needs. This is a high-ticket purchase and consumer involvement is also high. Out of our 450-member sales team, 100 associates will meet consumers directly to understand and analyse their decision making," said Bindal.

CFO Mehrotra has over 25 years of experience across industries and held the same post at ING Vysya Bank and was part of executive management council.

Jain used to work with CitiFinancial, Religare and Magna FinCorp. Other new hires include Sanjay Jadhav as vice-president, MEP construction management, Vinod Singh Uprari, vice- president, sales, Manmohan P Awasthi, vice-president, finance, Dheeraj K Dhawan, vicepresident, sales (commercial properties), Munish Suri, vice-president, sales, Sanjeev Pathak, vice- president, sales, and Vandana Kamra, vice-president, marketing.

SOURCE: ETRealty.com