With expertise in development of premium fashion brands, Shailesh has 25 years of work experience in apparel retail industry. He runs business of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein brands of US Multinational company PVH as their ‘Managing Director and CEO’ in India in their JV with Arvind grp here. The business has retail size in excess of Rs 1,000 Cr.

In the last 25 yrs working in the same industry, Shailesh has launched & developed some of the biggest brands in India including Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Louis Philippe, Van Heusen & Allen Solly. This assignment with Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein has given him opportunity to demonstrate methods of rapidly scaling up premium, imported businesses of very high standards profitably.

Before the current assignment, he had worked in Hong Kong with Benetton plc of Italy as the Head of its wholesale business in Asia Pacific region with responsibility of business in the countries of Asia Pac region incl Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia.

His career started with the British Madura Coats Group as mgmt trainee in yr 1992 after completing his MBA at NMIMS. Very early in career, he was also selected into Coats plc, UK’s prestigious leadership program ‘Tomorrow’s leaders’ in yr 1994. This was a 7 steps process of identifying high potential young leaders from various countries and he was one of the 9 selected young managers in the world for this fast track programme.

Global experience: Understanding that Indian business scene will get more internationalised, Shailesh has regularly pursued international exposure. Besides working in Asia Pac markets in previous assignment based at Hong Kong, he had also spent the last 3 yrs at Madura Garments as the business head of International brands division and in a pioneering effort in India, had arranged strategic relationship with many international brands which finally led to the very impactful national launch of Esprit brand from Germany in India in yr 2005

Some key professional recognitions :

• ‘The most admired retail fashion professional in the country ‘ award at the Images awards in yr 2016 at IFF.
• Selection into the list of top 10 young CEOs in India (Business Today magazine selection in Feb2009)
• Selection by CNBC TV into ‘The Young Turks in India’ series in Apr2008.