From leading an IPO to finding the right blend of offline and online retail, and a professional CEO, the third generation entrepreneurs are helping pivot and grow Metro Brands
Sisters Farah Malik Bhanji (right) and Alisha Malik spent their childhood years at the Metro Shoes Colaba store in Mumbai, which was started by their grandfather Malik Tejani
Image: Farah Malik Bhanji: Mexy Xavier
It has been a year of big changes for Metro Brands as a family business. Not only did the company bring in an external CEO in July 2021, but in December, it also went public. Though both moves had been in the works for a while, the two are not interlinked—it all simply happened to come together around the same time even as the company was recovering from the havoc wreaked by Covid-19 on retail businesses.
The process of going for an IPO actually started three to four years ago and the company had even put the bankers and legal team in place, but then Covid struck and they decided to wait a while. On the other hand, professionalising the business and succession planning have been an ongoing process at the specialty retail footwear brand, and it had always been part of the plan to eventually get in a CEO. When they found the right person in Nissan Joseph, who has about 20 years of experience in the retail industry that includes stints at Payless Shoes, Hickory Brands and Crocs, they decided they did not want to wait.
“There was a lot of debate… do you want to do it so close to an IPO, what will people think and so on. But the aim is always to do what is right for the company at the right time, and not so much what it will look like,” says Farah Malik Bhanji, third generation and managing director at Metro Brands.
In hindsight, it seems to have been good timing. The company had been working toward it by creating structures and building levels under the CEO—from business heads to HR to IT, and when the top management team was out talking to investors in the run-up to the IPO, these teams took the lead. “We are in a retail business, [and] that does not stop even for a day,” says Farah, 45, who was earlier CEO and MD. “Despite all of us being so closely involved with the whole IPO process, business as usual could go on and a lot of the teams that we have created under us started taking on a lot more responsibility. So it paid off on that angle.”
(This story appears in the 08 April, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)