MANISH KULKARNI Profit Center Head USA, India & in Ghana

Currently working as AVP-Operations for a Retail MNC with 24 retail Stores having 1 Million sft area & annual sale exceeding $100 Million with 800 staff in Ghana. Worked with Wal-Mart, USA and Reliance Retail, India in Retail store operations, Merchandising Strategy, Business Development and Logistics with sales responsibility of $80 Million. Pioneer of negotiating with International FMCG players like Kraft, P&G, Nabisco, Cadbury etc and extracting advert, marketing fees, stocking fees, resulting in topline growth by 12%. Self motivated person constantly challenging norms to do better or different. Multilateral & Multi Country exposure including Big Box store Management, Inventory management, Vendor negotiation, Supply chain management, Forecasting & Replenishment for Retail industry. Awards & Educational Qualification: 1. MBA from Binghamton University, New York, USA; Full Time, Residential Course, Batch of 2002 Special citation award by the University Dean for securing 100/100 marks in Subject Consumer Behavior. 2. Bachelors in Engineering (Plastics Engg) from Pune University, Pune, India 1991. 3. Received Best employee Award from Wal-Mart, USA.
* Merchandise

Planning * Customer relationship * Price Negotiations

* Supply chain & Operations * Demand Forecasting * SAP Super User

* Project Management * Inventory management * Communication

Organizational Experience
Melcom Group, Ghana, (W. Africa) 2009 - Current General Manager Merchandising & Operations Achievements: 1. Improved Sales of Household, Food categories by 17% resulting in topline increase by $137K 2. Reduced shrinkage of key FMCG, food products by 20% resulting in savings of $105K. 3. Negotiated Slotting Fees and Branding /Promotional Marketing Fees to the tune of $125,000 for the first time from International FMCG goods manufacturers for stocking their products. 4. Increase in customer satisfaction from 4.5 to 7 by better merchandise availability. 5. Increased B2B sales 55% by negotiation with corporate clients, neighborhood Kirana store etc & disposing close-to-expiry goods. 6. Increased range of merchandise by 20% to accommodate regional/Ethnic variants, 7. Increased store profitability by 4% by Employee & product management Responsible for complete handling of 24 shops including one 3 story; 120K sft area shop with sales of $105 Million with 300 staff, 7500 SKUs (2500 SKUs of Food category). Maintaining dally, weekly Sale and Inventory, giving feedback to director for fast selling items. Looking after Expiry of goods and disposal. Compliance of local and federal laws regarding perishable, expired goods by shelf life mgmt. Ensuring that the right product is bought at the right time and quantities so as to create sustainable supply chain increasing customer footfalls, conversion and ensuring Best selling items are in stock. Page 1 of 3

Touring sales floor, encouraging sales staff to up sale and inform customers about promotions. Getting customer feedback and providing inputs to directors for purchase of merchandise. Conducted Best Employee Contests on sales per month basis. Instituted Integrated materials management system handling 5800 SKUs; Prepared master schedules for Suppliers, Procurement; Supplier scheduling, procurement & performance monitoring; Developed sales and operating processes (SOP), Sales forecasting, stock planning and budgeting, cost analysis for the SKUs; Developing alternate vendors. Conducted demand analysis, forecasts, gap analysis & category management. Conducted Spend analysis, ABC analysis for Buying, Merchandising, Range planning to develop SOP to achieve 200% growth by coordination with all the stores.

Reliance Retail Limited, Mumbai, India National Manager: Lifestyle Merchandising

2006- 2009 National Headquarter (NHQ)

Achievements: 3% Improvement in gross margin of category products by managing promotion & Goods return policy. Increased shelf availability of core merchandise to 65% and ensuring overall on shelf product availability of more than 80% during each quarter. Generated B2B sales increase of 40% by way of product availability. Improved order fill rate by vendor by an average of 4% n 3 months by optimizing Minimum Order quantity based on criteria such as distance, rate of sale and forecasted demand. Improved sales per sft by 24% for Home needs and Food categories by a combination of Promotion, pricing and inventory management. Planned and rolled out 12 Hyper marts in a short span of 20 months, including vendor selection, HR functions and Merchandise selection (Lifestyle). Reformatted shelving & stackings for Food, Lifestyle sections in entire 2 million sft supermarket area resulting in standardized shelves, less breakages of Glass bottles, better visibility of store brand products and higher slotting fees, improving profitability by 8% net.
Responsibilities:

Responsible for planning, implementing and controlling annual sourcing plan of Rs. 180 crores for Lifestyle products for 43 Hyper stores covering area of 1 million sft. Quarterly review with CEO for margin management; Communication and implementation of sourcing plan at state and store level. Forecasted sales of merchandise at different selling prices, plan for discounts and other promotional events; estimate merchandise requirement at various price points and markets based on customer profile; Creating & benchmarking performance parameters in a Dashboard Style & discuss variance with state. Wal-Mart Inc USA Dec. 2002- April 2006
Assistant Buyer Lifestyle

Achievements Within a Buying budget of $250 million; exceeded Sales targets by over 6 %. Thanksgiving and Black Friday sale for our products was 230% over estimate. Increased on shelf availability to 80% by monitoring trucking schedules. Increase in customer satisfaction level from 5 to 6.5 on a scale of 10 in 6 months. Received Best Employee Award 2 times for outstanding performance Responsibilities: Page 2 of 3

 End to end responsibility for new product introduction at Annual Thanksgiving and Black Friday Holiday sale season, including vendor negotiation, product testing, order tracking, warehousing and store display. Product pricing and control by getting feedback from Store operations, customers and vendors. To lead efforts of an inter-departmental team at district and store level to ensure adherence and implementation of companys policy of great customer service. Generating and maintaining MIS business information reports to facilitate decision-making for future policies, in compliance with various Federal and Local statutes.
Small Business Development Center (SBDC), NY, USA Strategy Consultant for small businesses Jan 2002- Dec 2002

Preparation of Detailed Project Report including risk factors , technical specifications, cost estimations, listing of major plant and machinery & vendors for the $42 million project to manufacture Ethanol from corn in Broome County, New York, USA. Achievements: Organized two Business Start up Information meetings with small-scale entrepreneurs with the objective of helping them start new ventures. Finmart Ltd. Mumbai Aug1997- Aug 2001 Director A Boutique Financial services company offering Strategic consultancy to medium sized cooperative banks on investment planning, credit control & expansion strategy. Achievements: Introduced Investment Management and Stock Broking Services to high net worth clients like Individuals, Trusts and Co operative Banks and Small scale industries, generating profits of 20 million on a business of 100 million. Generated business of Rs.125 million during a period of 5 years, highest in the District. Generated investment in Government Bonds to the tune of Rs.12 million. Other Assignments in India: From August 1995 to August 1997 Chartered Capital & Finance Limited, Bombay as Finance Manager. From May 1994 to August 1995 with Premium Capital Markets, Mumbai as Finance Manager. From August 1991 to May 1992 with Savita Chemicals Ltd, Navi Mumbai as Shift Supervisor.
Correspondence Address: A1/1201, Millennium Towers, Sec 9, Sanpada, New Bombay-400705, India E mail: manishpk68@gmail.com Cell: 9833442264

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