Raghu Pillai passes away

Retailer Raghu Pillai, 54, one of the founders of Indian corporate retail, passed away in Chennai on Sunday morning after a sudden and fatal heart attack.

Mr Pillai was one of the best known faces of Indian retail, having been part of the start-up team of FoodWorld Supermarkets, which heralded organised retail into the country in the mid-nineties, and later part of the team which kick-started Reliance's retail operations in the country.

Mr Pillai is survived by his wife, daughter and son, both of whom are in university in Singapore.

Mr Pillai was the CEO of Future Value Retail and executive board member of Future group, where he had moved recently after quitting Reliance Retail as CEO. Starting his career with the RPG group in Dunlop in 1980, he was later with Fujitsu ICIM and then HMV before he joined FoodWorld Supermarkets, a joint venture the RPG group formed with Dairy Farm International in the mid-1990s to kick-start an organised retail chain in the country.

After a long career with the RPG group, Mr Pillai had moved briefly to the Future group and subsequently to Reliance, only to return to Future after a stint with Reliance as its CEO for operations and strategy.

In Reliance he oversaw the roll out of Reliance Retail into multiple formats from grocery to lifestyle retail.

Executive coach Mr Pradipta Mohapatra, who was the founding CEO of FoodWorld, shared a long association with Mr Pillai in the RPG group.

“What stood out was Raghu's boldness in anything he did, whether in work or life. He was a great leader of his team and with his unconventional leadership could rally around people and motivate them,” said Mr Mohapatra.

Mr Pillai would have been involved in the opening of at least a 1,000 stores across the country in his career in retail, he adds.

With FoodWorld, he was involved in unveiling different formats such as MusicWorld, Health & Glow and its hypermarket chain. With Dairy Farm exiting the joint venture, he remained with the RPG group which renamed its retail venture as Spencer's.

While he joined the RPG group soon after graduating in arts, Mr Mohapatra recalls that Mr Pillai made up for his lack of formal management education by completing an executive MBA programme from IIM-A and later an advanced management programme at Harvard Business School.

Mr Kishore Biyani, Chairman, Future Group, said, “Raghu Pillai was one of the founding members of modern retail much before Mr B.S. Nagesh of Shopper's Stop or myself came on the scene. He was a people's leader and would be missed for his leadership style which was infectious. Modern retail has lost one of its greatest talents.”

Mr Ganesh Chella of Totus Consulting, who worked closely with Mr Pillai during the initial FoodWorld days, describes him as the quintessential ‘one minute manager'. “No theorising much for him; he was a doer and could galvanise people around him with his positive energy.”

Mr K. Radhakrishnan, who worked with Mr Pillai in FoodWorld and later in Reliance, described his strengths in retail as the ability to make a very strong consumer connect and his keen eye for detail.

“He had the guts to roll out new stores quickly in a new market in a fledgling industry. He was always very correct in whatever he did.”

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