Contract’s Dipak Marwah joins Reliance Retail

Dipak Marwah, senior vice-president, Contract, Bangalore, has put in his papers. He will join Reliance Retail as head, marketing, lifestyle business, on Monday, June 26, 2006. Marwah will head the marketing function for the lifestyle business at the national level. He will report directly to Bijou Kurien, who recently moved from Titan Industries to Reliance Retail as its head of lifestyle ventures.

Confirming his move to agencyfaqs!, Marwah says, “Retail is a sunrise industry in India at this point of time. And what bigger platform than Reliance Retail? I hope to use my advertising background constructively, which will help me further my work here.”

It is learnt through informed sources that Reliance Retail is eyeing a turnover of Rs 90,000 crore by 2010. The sources further reveal that Reliance Retail is likely to venture into all kinds of retail formats, including hypermarkets, supermarkets, departmental stores and speciality shops.

Marwah, who is an MBA from IIM, Kolkata, started off his career as a banker at ANZ Grindlays Bank, Mumbai. He went on to join advertising with Lowe (then Lintas), where he spent six years handling brands such as Rexona, Liril, Bajaj Auto, Lipton Tea and Reckitt & Coleman.

Following that, he joined O&M and did a one-year stint there, handling Dabur and Godfrey Philips. After that, he worked for Bates Enterprise (then Clarion), where he was a witness to the Bates-Clarion merger. While there, he worked mainly on ITC (Gold Flake) and BPL Home Appliances.

After a brief stint at Rediffusion DY&R, Chennai, as its branch head, Marwah joined Contract, Bangalore, where he has worked for the last six and a half years. At Contract, Marwah has worked on retail brands such as Louis Phillippe, Himalaya (franchise stores), Shell (petrol pumps) and Planet Fashion.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!