Zouk - Business Development Manager - Retail Expansion

Retail Business Development Manager (Retail Expansion)

Location: Chembur, Mumbai

Experience: 3 - 5 Years

Function: Offline Revenue

Travel: Extensive travel across India

About Zouk:

Zouk is a modern Indian lifestyle brand creating stylish, functional, and thoughtfully designed products inspired by India. As a fast-growing D2C brand, Zouk has built a strong presence across bags, wallets, footwear, and accessories, and is rapidly expanding its offline retail presence across India.

As we continue to scale our retail footprint, we are looking for a Business Development Manager - Retail Expansion who can help us identify and secure high-potential locations across the country.

About the Role:

As the Business Development Manager - Retail, you will be responsible for driving Zouk's Pan-India store expansion by identifying, evaluating, negotiating, and securing high-potential mall and high-street locations.

This role is ideal for someone who understands retail real estate, has strong commercial and negotiation skills, and enjoys building relationships and driving deals from opportunity identification to closure.

What You'll Do:

• Drive Pan-India retail expansion across North, South, East, West, and Northeast India.
• Identify and evaluate high-potential mall and high-street locations based on footfall, catchment, visibility, competition, rentals, and commercial viability.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with brokers, landlords, property owners, developers, and mall management teams.
• Source potential locations through direct engagement with property stakeholders and external partners.
• Lead commercial negotiations covering rent, CAM, security deposit, lock-in, lease terms, fit-out period, revenue share, and other commercial terms.
• Build and maintain a strong pipeline of potential retail locations across key cities and emerging markets.
• Prepare location proposals and commercial evaluations for management review.
• Own the location acquisition process from identification and evaluation to negotiation, closure, and handover.
• Work closely with Retail Operations, Finance, Projects, Legal, and other internal teams to enable smooth store openings.
• Track competitor expansion, retail trends, upcoming malls, high streets, and emerging retail destinations to identify new opportunities.
• Ensure locations are secured within agreed timelines and commercial parameters.

What We're Looking For:

• 3 - 5 years of experience in Business Development, Retail Expansion, Retail Leasing, or Store Expansion.
• Experience in retail, D2C, fashion, lifestyle, or consumer brands with a strong physical retail presence.
• Hands-on experience in retail location sourcing and commercial negotiations.
• Strong network and relationships with brokers, landlords, property owners, and mall management teams.
• Strong negotiation skills and commercial acumen, with the ability to evaluate and secure attractive retail locations.
• Good understanding of retail real estate, including rentals, CAM, deposits, lock-ins, lease structures, fit-out periods, and revenue-share models.
• Strong communication, networking, relationship management, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to independently manage multiple opportunities and drive them to closure.
• High ownership and execution orientation.
• Willingness to travel extensively across India.

Why Join Zouk?:

Be part of a fast-growing Indian brand and play a key role in shaping Zouk's offline retail expansion across the country. This is an opportunity to directly contribute to where and how the brand shows up across India's retail landscape.