Sanjeev Mohanty quits Jabong joins Levi Strauss as new MD

Sanjeev Mohanty, Former chief executive and managing director at Jabong, has joined Levi Strauss & Co. as the new MD South Asia operations. Earlier he was Managing Director of Benetton India for nearly 11 years. This is his second stint at Levi Strauss. Earlier he was product manager between January 1999 and July 2001.

Mohanty is a veteran with over 20 years of experience in the apparel business which includes stints at Levi’s India, Madura Garments and Benetton India. He holds a degree in apparel marketing and merchandising, fashion and retail marketing from the National Institute of Fashion Technology. Levi Strauss is introducing new products in India at the same time as they are launched abroad, continuously shutting underperforming stores and working with fewer, but larger, retailers to grow same-store sales by more than 10 per cent.

Levi Strauss is present in 1,500 stores across India, including 400 exclusive stores and multi-brand outlets such as Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle. In a given year, while it adds stores overall, the company continuously shuts unprofitable stores or shifts them to better locations.

The company, which franchises its brand to local retailers, has reduced its retail partners by more than 80 per cent to gain economies of scale and better control over inventory.

Other than Mohanty, a couple of other senior executives also quit Jabong in the last eight months, as the company ceded market share to Myntra and talks of a potential sale gained momentum. Chief product officer Saurabh Goel quit the firm in June after an eight-month stint, while chief marketing officer Saurabh Srivastava quit the company in February. Srivastava was brought in from mobile wallet firm Mobikwik. Meanwhile, the buzz is Jabong’s chief technology officer Sumit Jain too has quit the online fashion retailer, a month after it was acquired by Flipkart. Jain had joined Jabong in October.