Rashi Goel

About Rashi Goel

In 2002, I was a young brand manager on Closeup. The brand had been declining, and we were arguing about the wrong things - Too expensive. Flat rural. More competition. My managers ran interim promotions to buy us time, and we went on a sensemaking expedition. We took a box of toothpastes - every gel, every colour, every design - and asked consumers, Who uses this? What does it promise? What world does it live in? These were the blind spots. White pastes lived in a world of family, health, strong teeth. Colourful ones lived in a youthful world of romance, fresh breath, confidence. Closeup occupied the second world, but it was losing out on functional points of parity. Closeup\'s idea of \"youth\" resonated, but the youth of 2002 were not the youth of 1975. The worst thing we could do was copy other toothpastes’ playbooks, or repeat our own. These insights drove the next set of commercial actions - we reformulated the product and rebuilt Closeup around a new definition of confidence, and the brand turned around. That\'s what I mean when I say strategy is a compounding system of commercial actions, powered by one irreducible insight. All my successes have been in systems that created the conditions for real strategy. All my failures have been in systems going through their Strategy Blind™ phase. Such systems become so good at optimising visible KPIs, that subtle forces reshaping demand become their blind spots. Kraft Heinz focussed on EBITDA and didn\'t see the trust Complan lost because of quality erosion due to relentless cost-cutting. A 14-share brand was at 7 and falling. The business was sold a few years later. I have now stopped trying to fix strategy with decks, and have started rebuilding conditions that enable real strategy. I run Strategy Activator Workshops™ with CXO teams. They walk in with a question and walk out with one irreducible consumer insight that becomes the unifying platform for every commercial action. They end up with playbooks they build and own, not borrowed ones. A home care market leader rewrote its definition of the consumer to unlock penetration. A staples brand found the wedge to turn \"aware but not buying\" women into buyers. A 42-year-old condiment brand deepened leadership in a commoditised category. They did not need more data, they needed a systematic process to extract strategic insight. I also write The India Playbook™ — a thesis on how to grow FMCG in the India of today and tomorrow. You can find it at theindiaplaybook.substack.com

Experience

1. Founder, CEO

   Performonks

   Jan 2023 — Present · Gurugram, IN

   We run bespoke strategy activator workshops for consumer brands. In these workshops, we work with the business team to convert data and observations into insights. After that, we synthesise the insights generated and develop a comprehensive strategic plan for the business. The plan covers strategic deployment across NPD, market and consumer activation and repositioning. We can say with confidence, that if executed as recommended, the plan will turbocharge business growth.A happy outcome of the workshops is that it trains client teams in consumer backward thinking and sensemaking (a key input into strategic thinking). Deep conversations and ploughing through data side-by-side removes confusion, clarifies the team\'s perspectives, and unifies diverse points of view.We have completed Strategy Activator workshops for Reckitt, Tata Salt and Tata Sampann and have received positive feedback. We also run non-theoretical, hands-on training for marketing teams that help them build their strategic thinking muscle.

Education

• Jesus & Mary College

  Bachelor of Commerce (Hons)

  1993 — 1996

• Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

  MBA

  1996 — 1998

• Stanford University Graduate School of Business

  Sloan Fellow

  2008 — 2009