Majestic names Anita Balchandani non-exec director

Anita Balchandani has been appointed a non-executive director at Majestic Wine, effective from June 10th. She will bring her years of experience in retail consulting, at OC&C Strategy Consultants among others, to her new role of overseeing the direction of the company.

Balchandani started her career as a Business Analyst for A.T. Kearney in 1997, before moving to rival Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in 1999, to become a Senior Project Manager over her five year tenure. In 2004 she joined ASDA Wal-Mart to become Head of Non-Food Business Development, a position she held for one year before starting at OC&C Strategy Consultants as a Partner. Two years later she left OC&C to take on the role of Group Strategy & Business Development Director at Shop Direct, before returning to her Partner position at OC&C from 2011 to present day as the Sector Head of the UK Retail team.

In her role as OC&C Balchandani works across Europe, North America and Asia in shaping and delivering their strategic agenda – including unlocking value from customer data and segmentation and enabling organisations to manage the transition from bricks and mortar to multichannel/online. Balchandani holds an MSc in Management from the London School of Economics and Stern School of Business (New York University) as well as an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management.

Majestic Wine is an in 1980 founded retailer, which sells wine by the case. Since its inception the company has grown to become the UK’s largest wine retailer with more than 200 stores around the country. Per June 10th the wine retailer has named Balchandani a non-executive director at the firm – her second non-executive director position, she currently also serves on the board of Space NK Apothecary.

"Having recently acquired Naked Wines, we are now transforming the business into an international, multi-channel wine specialist, and Anita’s strategic and operational insight will be invaluable to this transformation”, comments Phil Wrigley, Chairman of Majestic Wine.