WayCool Foods strengthens its senior leadership team

WayCool Foods, India's fastest growing agri-commerce company, today announced key leadership appointments. The appointments are in continuation with WayCool’s drive to attract the best global talent. WayCool appoints BP Ravindran as its chief business officer (CBO), Sowmik Banerjee as its chief operating officer (COO) - Retail Franchise Business, Kiran Gupta Rayapati as general counsel and head- Legal, Rajadurai Thirumurthy as head- Business Finance and Commercial, and Charish Puri as head - Strategic Sourcing and Supplier Development Group.

BP Ravindran is a seasoned professional with 27+ years of experience across diverse categories such as Personal Care, Dairy & Beverages, Foods & Snacks. In this role, Ravindran will drive the P and L for WayCool's Consumer Products portfolio, driving sales and distribution of its own private labels, as well as its distributed brands, through the company's unique direct distribution platform, into over 100,000 kirana stores. He will also be responsible for brand development, digital marketing and driving the penetration of WayCool's private labels into multiple online platforms.

Sowmik Banerjee with 21 years of experience in retail, was in his previous stint, Heading the Southern region of a leading national retail franchise, driving the growth of over 150 retail stores. At Waycool, Sowmik will be responsible for building out SunnyBee, the company's omnichannel consumer facing platform. He will bring on board franchisees to scale this platform online and offline, and scale the business across the Southern Region

Kiran Gupta brings over two decades of experience in driving corporate advisory support, legal due diligence, deal structuring and deal documentation. As Waycool rolls out its aggressive expansion plans, Kiran will anchor the legal aspects of the company's fund raising processes, drive M and A and investments. In addition, Kiran will prepare the company in maturing its governance and business processes, on its path to IPO.

Rajadurai Thirumurthy is a seasoned automotive industry veteran, with over 2 decades of business transformation experience, including pricing, cost optimization, logistics optimization, marketing and sales and finance. Raja will lead business finance and commercial functions across all of WayCool's BUs, driving them on the path to profitability and working capital efficiency even as the businesses continue to scale rapidly.

Charish Puri brings in decades of rich experience in sourcing & supply chain from companies such as Ashok Leyland Limited and Hero Motors Limited. In his new role, Charish will work with the company's fresh produce and perishable goods supply teams, agri-extension teams and international sourcing teams to build strategic partnerships with the company's partners, and build out a continual improvement program that constantly improves benchmarks in this space.

“At WayCool, we firmly believe that our people are our most important asset and what truly sets us apart in a competitive and rapidly evolving industry. In the past 18 months, WayCool has grown 4X, and has added over 1000 family members in the last 6 months" said Karthik Jayaraman, Managing Director, WayCool Foods.

“WayCool is constantly looking at bringing fresh perspectives and new capabilities to the table, we are delighted to have Ravindran, Sowmik, Kiran, Raja and Charish on board. All of them come with more than two decades of experience each in transformational roles, and bring with them great capability to build out large scale platforms profitably and efficiently.” further added, Jayaraman.

WayCool has been quietly building its leadership bench strength over the past few months. Recent joinees include Alex Augustine – chief people officer, Jayan Menon - head - Marketplaces vertical, who joined the company from Olam, and V Jayaraman, a banking and financial services veteran, who now leads the company's financial services vertical.