Raymond ropes in Sanjay Behl as CEO

Raymond has brought in Sanjay Behl, as the CEO of textile

and apparel businesses to lead the textile major's transformation into a global lifestyle company. Behl is former Head of Brand and Marketing at Reliance ADA Group.

The 45-year old IIT graduate, who started his career at Hindustan Uniliver, has been mandated to plan strategies to reposition Raymond's textile business in tune with the changing wardrobe trends in India and elsewhere. Clothing business constitutes 80 percent of Gautam Singhania-owned Raymond's turnover of Rs 4,500 crores. The 88-year old company is also present in personal grooming and tool businesses.

Behl has already taken charge at Raymond and currently understanding the business by meeting top company executives. As per recent research, rising disposable incomes and growing preferences of consumers even in Tier II, III towns, for branded products have resulted in India's clothing industry growing at the rate of 17 percent. Total size of the industry is around Rs 3 lakh crores, out of which 40 percent belongs to menswear products.

Raymond has planned aggressive retail expansion to grow its large-format retail store network. It already has close to 1.8 million square foot of exclusive retail space as it expanded in the smaller towns and cities.