Gaurav Sharan

About Gaurav Sharan

Currently serving as Vice President & Head – Merchandising and Growth at Specsmakers, where I lead merchandising, category, product architecture and customer experience transformation — integrating analytics, design thinking and commercial strategy to drive omnichannel business growth. My career spans Specsmakers, Lenskart, EssilorLuxottica and Saturdays, where I’ve built and scaled categories across lifestyle, fashion and eyewear; led private-label strategy; strengthened P&L performance; and delivered measurable improvements in CX, sell-through, assortment effectiveness and store productivity.*Core Expertise*:1) Merchandising, Category Strategy & Product Architecture 2) P&L Ownership, Commercial Growth & Private Label 3) Omnichannel & D2C Growth (Retail + Digital)4) CX Transformation & Customer Lifecycle 5) Data-led Merchandising & Consumer Insights 6) Cross-functional Leadership & Multi-market ExperienceI combine strategic thinking with execution discipline — building scalable retail systems that connect product, pricing, customer behaviour and channel performance into cohesive, repeatable growth engines. Open to senior leadership roles across Merchandising, Retail, Category Management, Omnichannel & CX or Retail strategy.

Experience

1. Category Head & VP Merchandising, Growth & Cx

   Specsmakers

   Jun 2024 — Present · Tamil Nadu, IN

   Spearheading end-to-end merchandising, category P&L, and omni-channel growth across a 300+ store network, competing with Lenskart and Titan Eye+ — aligning commercial logic (business), visual & creative storytelling (design) & CX-led decisioning (customer journeys) into one cohesive growth engine. Own core KPIs, including revenue, GM%, sell-through, inventory turns, and conversion.• Contributed to achieving Specsmakers’ first ₹100 Cr revenue milestone; currently driving scale-up towards ₹250 Cr AOP, repositioning the brand from value-led to an aspirational lifestyle player— across kids lifestyle, youth lifestyle and premium lifestyle through sharper assortment, portfolio-mix and category-led growth.• Driving KPI-led category management, optimising metrics like sell-through, ASP, GM%, inventory cover, and conversion%, enabling sharper in-season trading decisions.• Built and scaled a house-of-brands portfolio — Specsmakers (core functional), Happster (aspirational lifestyle), Streak (Gen-Z street fashion), and Peepstar (kids) — defining each by price, persona, and purpose to enhance discovery and improve category mix, margins and conversions.• Institutionalised a unified 5P commercial framework anchored in the 3E strategy – Entice, Engage & Enhance — integrating analytics with creative merchandising to attract shoppers, deepen engagement, and elevate brand experience across channels.

Education

• SDA Bocconi

  Master's Degree, International Business

  2012 — 2014

• SDA Bocconi Asia Center

  Master's Degree, International Business

  2012 — 2014

• Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

  AGMP, Business Administration and Management, General

  2020 — 2021

• London Business School

  Digital Marketing, Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services

  2020 — 2021

Skills

• Market Research
• Competitive Analysis
• Product Marketing
• Microsoft Office
• Business Development
• Strategy
• Teamwork
• Business Analysis
• Marketing
• Brand Management
• Marketing Research
• Marketing Strategy
• Product Management