M&S India MD Venu Nair, quits to join Trent as the new commercial officer

Tata Group’s retail arm Trent has appointed Venu Nair, Managing Director of Marks & Spencer Reliance, India, as its new chief commercial officer. Trent operates Westside department stores and Star Bazaar supermarket network. Nair is expected to join Trent by the end of April. He will report to Philip Auld, who took over as the chief executive of the BSE-listed company three years ago.

Approving his departure from Marks & Spencer India, a joint venture between the UK fashion retailer and Reliance Industries, Nair says he is happy to join Trent that has multi-brand retail joint venture with UK’s Tesco. He further added in a email statement “Venu will leave with our thanks and best wishes. He has had a great career at M&S and we understand this was an opportunity too good for him to turn down,” said a Marks & Spencer spokesperson.

Nair joined M&S as a regional director in London in 2004 and was sent to India a year later as the head of its sourcing operations in the country. He was subsequently promoted as India MD in 2012. Currently, M&S operates 57 outlets in 27 cities across India.

Trent was established in 1998 and currently operates dozens of Westside department stores and Trent Hypermarkets, Tata’s joint venture with Tesco that operates the Star Bazaar hypermarkets and Star Daily supermarkets.