MUMBAI: Lodha group has hired Anubhav Gupta as chief executive of its retail business. The appointment, which took effect in September, brings a property veteran with an unusual pedigree: Gupta is as comfortable talking sustainability metrics as he is flogging luxury flats.
Gupta spent a decade at Godrej Properties, where he rose to run the Vikhroli project, the company’s flagship mixed-use development in Mumbai. At his peak, he was responsible for just under half of Godrej Properties’ profit after tax—a hefty chunk for one executive to carry. He also wore multiple hats as chief sustainability officer and founder of the company’s in-house design studio, which churned out award-winning products across 170m square feet of real estate in 12 cities.
Before Lodha, Gupta spent 16 months as chief operating officer at DLF, heading the property giant’s ultra-luxury business. His earlier career reads like a global tour: he taught urban design at MIT and the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, worked as an urban planner for the Chicago Transit Authority, and held senior roles at architectural practices RTKL and RMJM in London and Hong Kong.
Gupta is a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and was named among Asia’s 40 leading designers under 40 by Perspective Global. His work at Godrej earned plaudits for blending design thinking with agile innovation, a buzzword-heavy approach that nonetheless delivered results.
At Lodha, his brief is to oversee the developer’s retail operations—a natural extension for a man who built his reputation on mixed-use projects. Whether he can replicate his Godrej success in a new setting remains to be seen. But Lodha is clearly betting that a design-savvy executive with a track record in profitability is worth the gamble.